06/29/2009 | W0CBH What a year, 10 meters was in. Best band for field day. We had our usual crowd of ops at the Franktown, CO auxiliary fire station 183. The Douglas County antenna trailer was positioned and we mounted the 3 element wilson beam at the top and started to raise it to 80 feet. We made it to 20 ft. before a bracket broke inside the tower base and we were stuck for the rest of the event. Oh well, it was high enough to make many contacts, especially in CA. We were 3A this year and kept the rigs pretty busy through the event. We had approximately 18 hams through the event and approximately 7 to 10 at any one time, several stayed overnight, and others went home and then back the next day. We had all ICOM rigs, one beam, one rotating dipole, one vertical and one inverted vee up at 50 feet.

The group is getting better at organizing and assembling the equipment we need and then taking it all down was now done in 2 hours instead of three. We made contacts until 11:00 am on Sunday and then started tearing down the stations for a motorcyle rally which was being held at the station starting at 12:00 noon. We made it just in time.

We made 773 contacts, 17 of which were cw, the rest were phone. We had three children attend and make contacts with them on two meters. We had our information booth, copied the ARRL message, had a public announcment of our event on a local NPR station, and held the event in a public place. We had several visitors who were local hams living near the station. Ben KB0UBZ, Dave W0CBI, and Ann KA0ZFI came by for dinner and to see the operation. For the first time since we started using the station we did not have any rain or hail.

It was great having 20-15-10 meters all working. The 10 meter ops were amazed and surprised on the number of hams working the band. I haven't checked the logs yet to see how many contacts on which band yet. Pictures will be posted when I get them from the picture takers. This year turned out to be an enjoyable event and we are already writing lessons learned for next year. We used N3FJP's network field day program and it worked well. We had a power failure on the wireless access point and had to hand log until we got the three startions back up about 30 minutes later, but learned a lesson. Always have a UPS on the server computer and wireless access device. It is great being able to work on any band from any station using the network.

The hams who attended were: W0CBH, N0LP, N0NDM, WA0GEH, KB0YRZ, W9CN, KC0D, KC0UUO, KA0ULN, KA9UGN, WB0TUB, K0UN, KC0SOW, N0WPR, KB0BOE, KC0EHU,and WB4ETT. I was able to make contacts again with former ham clubs, W6NWG, and W0NT. We had a tribute highball for Al Cooley N0AUS, who passed away a week ago. He had been a long time member of our crew. We felt his presence during the event.

Gene, wb9coy, I haven't heard you for two years now, where are you? W0CBH. -- W0CBH