07/11/2009 | WY5I As another beautiful sunrise caused the Ocean to sparkle like diamonds and the sounds of sea gulls with the gentle waves lapping the beach in Jupiter, Florida, our members started setting up for yet another annual Field Day event. We knew that is was going to be a hot day with temperatures close to 100 degrees so our goal was to set up the outside antennas first and then spend the rest of the day indoors. On Saturday, the Palm Beach County Tactical Command Unit arrived along with volunteers from the American Red Cross who demonstrated their state of the art satellite communications phone gear. John Scott, from the State of Florida Emergency Management Division 7 spent some time as an observer and instructor. Jeff Beals WA4AW and David Fowler K4DLF ARRL Officials also stopped by our FD site. Using a Yeasu 1000, Icom 756 Pro III and a Kenwood 2000 on generator provided by the Palm Beach County Fire Chiefs, battery, solar and wind power provided by Solar Stik, we began making contacts at 2:00pm on Saturday for a full 24 hours. We logged most of our contacts on 10, 15, 17, 20, 40 and 75/80. Our GOTA station was a Yeasu FT 840 which was also active with many potential and new Hams getting on the air. Saturday we started off with doughnuts, muffins and coffee. Lunch was hamburgers and hotdogs. Dinner was bar-b-q chicken and ribs. Sunday morning was pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon and for lunch we finished off the hot dogs, hambergers, chicken and ribs. Nobody left hungry. When it got to be too hot, we hopped into the ocean to cool off and the outside showers got a good workout too. We went through 10 cases of just bottled water alone. Not only was it hot outside but inside the Jupiter Civic Center, the airwaves were hot also with numerous contacts all over the United States, Canada with the furthest station in Guam. The weekend went by so fast that it was hard to believe it was time to pack everything up and store it away until our May 29th and 30th 2010 DXpedition to Peanut Island, Florida which we are looking forward to and will be a great event for all the Hams in South Florida. We are looking forward to 2010 with two great events, our DXpedition to Peanut Island and Field Day. Ready, set. contact!

Albert Moreschi AG4BV President JTRG www.jtrg.org ARRL Lifetime Member ag4bv@arrl.net Jupiter, Florida -- AG4BV -- AG4BV