07/02/2009 | K8DF K8DF, Stonewall Jackson Amateur Radio Association (SJARA),
Field Day for 2009 started for the members of SJARA when we met on the grassy knoll behind the local YMCA located in the Lowndes Hill Civil War Historical Park. Completely surrounding the Field Day site are remains of Civil War encampments overlooking Clarksburg, WV. Installation of antennas commenced late in the evening on Friday July 26, 2009. First the tower was erected and mounting of the Tribander for 20/15/10 meters. Also installed were a 40 mtr dipole and 80 mtr dipole at 50 feet. A 15 x 20 shelter was erected for use on Saturday and Sunday. The weather was beautiful on Friday.

Saturday started early to finish setting up all of the radios, computers and other associated equipment. Everything went smoothly until one cable was missing and the computer logging program wouldnt work. A quick trip was made for a USB to Serial adapter.

We started up on time with no more problems. 40 mtrs was very active and 20 appeared to be open to some extent but conditions were nothing to cheer about. SJARA operated as a 2A and also having a GOTA station going. Operations were going very well when one of the computers for logging went hay wire. It was taken off line very quickly and a substitute was brought on line. The GOTA station was a very popular station we had several operators making multiple contacts.

The remaining of Saturday went without a hitch. Dinner was attended by over 30 people with Hot Dogs and Hamburgers with members and spouses bringing some outstanding food in covered dishes.

The local TV station, WDTV TV channel 5.1 dropped by about 6PM and interviewed several operators and took a video of our operations. SJARA and Field Day appeared on the 6 Oclock local news. The Video can be seen on the SJARA web site at:

http://www.sjara.org/fieldday2009.htm

Everything else ran very well until early in the morning on Sunday, the generator suddenly stopped. A check was made and it was just a small thing, the generator operator had fallen asleep and no one thought to check the fuel. The generator was back up shortly and operations returned to normal.

Operations continued until noon when there was a threat of rain in the forecast, so unneeded equipment and other materials were taken down and operations were discontinued at 1:45 EDT. When downloading the logs from the computer it was found that files in one computer were corrupted. After working for around 4 hours later on Sunday evening I finally merged the files and recovered all of the contacts. Luckily the GOTA station used paper and none of the GOTA contacts were effected by the computer glitch. We worked all 50 states and 7 Canadian Provinces. We did not work Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Manitoba nor the Northern Territories.

We didnt set the world on fire but we all had a great time enjoying Field Day and the beautiful weather in the West Virginia hills. -- K8TPH