2008 ARRL Field Day
07/06/2008 |
K5CAB
Soap Box comments for K5CAB (operator N5XNF)
PLAN A
Our original intent was to operate a 2A station from a location on the Rio Grande River, just south of Williamsburg, NM. Operators were to be N5BBD and N5XNF. I thought that the damp ground on the river bank (plus the river itself) should provide an excellent ground plane for the vertical antennas. I brought along two huge PV batteries (100+ lbs) that were just donated to the radio club for station power with a generator to recharge them, and also a solar panel just for kicks.
I left home Thursday around noon and began the journey up to the river location. The trip went well, with two RV travel trailers. Thursday evening saw most of the camp set up.
Friday afternoon, the first vertical was set up, right on the edge of the river. The ground was wet just as expected. It turns out that there is little loose soil though, because when we drove the pipe into the ground to hold the vertical, the ground would not grab the pipe. It just created a hole in the ground, and we could rotate the pipe easily by hand. This is also when the newspaper photographer was available, so it had to be set up then for a picture!
PLAN B (through L)
The antenna was moved to a different location that had dirt about 100 down the river bank. The pipe was driven in and the antenna installed. We ran the MFJ analyzer on the antenna, and all was very good, 40m was almost perfect. A piece of 9913 was ran back to camp, and again, checked on the MFJ to be great.
We hooked the batteries up, and well Mr. Murphy was holding the meter. I guess the reason they were taken out of PV service is that they both seem to have dead cells. All the battery would maintain was 10V after 48 hours of charging at 6 amps. Well, we had a back up for the back up plan, so now we were going to be operating off the generator.
Now, why this happened is a mystery, and we are open to any ideas that anyone may have. Hooked up the coax to the radio and it saw a SWR from between 3:1 to infinity on all bands, except 40 meters. The analyzers still said everything was fine. We spent the rest of Friday afternoon checking and rechecking everything we could think of, and still the radio saw a bad SWR. We tried N5BBDs radio and it saw it also. We even tried two different pieces of coax, and all had the same result. At this point, we decided it was not worth setting up the second vertical.
Now, here comes that thinking thing again and another plan. I was really sure that the antenna was working. So, I decided to tune out whatever the radio was seeing by using a tuner. I plugged in my tuner, and the SWR meter pegged out at infinity. We couldnt adjust anything. It seems that something was bounced loose inside the tuner on the trip to the river. So, N5BBD went to his house and brought his tuner out to the site.
Just to be safe, I had brought an extra balun along, and we made a quick 20 meter dipole. It was strung up using a painters extension pole and tied to trees around the site. We pretty much decided at that point that 2A was a bit optimistic. Besides, Pat (N5BBD) had some personal business that he needed to attend to so K5CAB 1-A NM came to be.
Once things kicked off, I tried several contacts on the dipole and had to call several times to get an answer (not unusual for field day I guess). Then I decided to try the vertical with the tuner idea. I was heard and answered almost every time on the first try, even in some pretty big pile-ups. It seemed that the vertical was indeed working well, so that became the primary antenna. It worked 20 meters and 40 meters very well.
At 2123Z, I worked T99W and E77EY. Had to stop and fire up the computer to see where that was. Bosnia. Great! At least something was going our way finally.
Well, that good omen was not to be for long. At approximately 2000 hours local time, the wind was almost perfectly calm. By 2001 hours, it was at 65+mph. It sustained that speed for quite some time. The NWS says it was an outflow wind , or a gust front from a nearby thunderstorm cell. It did in fact tear up the Marina on Elephant Butte Lake, and capsized and sank 16 boats (we were told). Our tents and screen room were blown badly, but we were able to save them. The tree holding the dipole was damaged, and the wire snapped loose, but the vertical survived! An 8 diameter tree limb snapped and fell on one of the cars in camp.
And now on to goofy things. I could tell the generator was kind of acting up all along. It would just diesel, speed up and slow down continually. Well, by dark-thirty when it was time for lights, they were pulsing, and this got to be annoying as heck. Disco was NOT my thing! We started working this problem and it turns out it was the capacitors in the Astron-35 Power Supply charging and dis-charging. So, a dead battery to the rescue, we connected the battery across the power supply terminals, and it cured the problem. Did I mention we are on about Plan L at this point (lol).
We finally called it a night at about 0500Z and ate dinner and went to bed.
Sunday morning brought some time on 80 meters, but the band was not that good. My girlfriend Kim (KB5QVG) is a technician and she finally got brave and took over the mic for a little while and made several contacts up on 20 meters as it began to open.
Overall, I am still very happy with the way it all turned out. I havent really looked at any previous 1-A scores, but I am sure we didnt break any records! It was a great learning experience. In all, we logged about 185 contacts, including 43 states plus DC, 3 Canadian provinces, and the 2 real DX contacts.
PS. Maybe we can get an honorable mention in QST for the highest wind speed.
73 from (K5CAB 1-A NM) N5XNF -- N5XNF
PLAN A
Our original intent was to operate a 2A station from a location on the Rio Grande River, just south of Williamsburg, NM. Operators were to be N5BBD and N5XNF. I thought that the damp ground on the river bank (plus the river itself) should provide an excellent ground plane for the vertical antennas. I brought along two huge PV batteries (100+ lbs) that were just donated to the radio club for station power with a generator to recharge them, and also a solar panel just for kicks.
I left home Thursday around noon and began the journey up to the river location. The trip went well, with two RV travel trailers. Thursday evening saw most of the camp set up.
Friday afternoon, the first vertical was set up, right on the edge of the river. The ground was wet just as expected. It turns out that there is little loose soil though, because when we drove the pipe into the ground to hold the vertical, the ground would not grab the pipe. It just created a hole in the ground, and we could rotate the pipe easily by hand. This is also when the newspaper photographer was available, so it had to be set up then for a picture!
PLAN B (through L)
The antenna was moved to a different location that had dirt about 100 down the river bank. The pipe was driven in and the antenna installed. We ran the MFJ analyzer on the antenna, and all was very good, 40m was almost perfect. A piece of 9913 was ran back to camp, and again, checked on the MFJ to be great.
We hooked the batteries up, and well Mr. Murphy was holding the meter. I guess the reason they were taken out of PV service is that they both seem to have dead cells. All the battery would maintain was 10V after 48 hours of charging at 6 amps. Well, we had a back up for the back up plan, so now we were going to be operating off the generator.
Now, why this happened is a mystery, and we are open to any ideas that anyone may have. Hooked up the coax to the radio and it saw a SWR from between 3:1 to infinity on all bands, except 40 meters. The analyzers still said everything was fine. We spent the rest of Friday afternoon checking and rechecking everything we could think of, and still the radio saw a bad SWR. We tried N5BBDs radio and it saw it also. We even tried two different pieces of coax, and all had the same result. At this point, we decided it was not worth setting up the second vertical.
Now, here comes that thinking thing again and another plan. I was really sure that the antenna was working. So, I decided to tune out whatever the radio was seeing by using a tuner. I plugged in my tuner, and the SWR meter pegged out at infinity. We couldnt adjust anything. It seems that something was bounced loose inside the tuner on the trip to the river. So, N5BBD went to his house and brought his tuner out to the site.
Just to be safe, I had brought an extra balun along, and we made a quick 20 meter dipole. It was strung up using a painters extension pole and tied to trees around the site. We pretty much decided at that point that 2A was a bit optimistic. Besides, Pat (N5BBD) had some personal business that he needed to attend to so K5CAB 1-A NM came to be.
Once things kicked off, I tried several contacts on the dipole and had to call several times to get an answer (not unusual for field day I guess). Then I decided to try the vertical with the tuner idea. I was heard and answered almost every time on the first try, even in some pretty big pile-ups. It seemed that the vertical was indeed working well, so that became the primary antenna. It worked 20 meters and 40 meters very well.
At 2123Z, I worked T99W and E77EY. Had to stop and fire up the computer to see where that was. Bosnia. Great! At least something was going our way finally.
Well, that good omen was not to be for long. At approximately 2000 hours local time, the wind was almost perfectly calm. By 2001 hours, it was at 65+mph. It sustained that speed for quite some time. The NWS says it was an outflow wind , or a gust front from a nearby thunderstorm cell. It did in fact tear up the Marina on Elephant Butte Lake, and capsized and sank 16 boats (we were told). Our tents and screen room were blown badly, but we were able to save them. The tree holding the dipole was damaged, and the wire snapped loose, but the vertical survived! An 8 diameter tree limb snapped and fell on one of the cars in camp.
And now on to goofy things. I could tell the generator was kind of acting up all along. It would just diesel, speed up and slow down continually. Well, by dark-thirty when it was time for lights, they were pulsing, and this got to be annoying as heck. Disco was NOT my thing! We started working this problem and it turns out it was the capacitors in the Astron-35 Power Supply charging and dis-charging. So, a dead battery to the rescue, we connected the battery across the power supply terminals, and it cured the problem. Did I mention we are on about Plan L at this point (lol).
We finally called it a night at about 0500Z and ate dinner and went to bed.
Sunday morning brought some time on 80 meters, but the band was not that good. My girlfriend Kim (KB5QVG) is a technician and she finally got brave and took over the mic for a little while and made several contacts up on 20 meters as it began to open.
Overall, I am still very happy with the way it all turned out. I havent really looked at any previous 1-A scores, but I am sure we didnt break any records! It was a great learning experience. In all, we logged about 185 contacts, including 43 states plus DC, 3 Canadian provinces, and the 2 real DX contacts.
PS. Maybe we can get an honorable mention in QST for the highest wind speed.
73 from (K5CAB 1-A NM) N5XNF -- N5XNF
Back
