07/13/2009 | KF7AMY/KE7NCL My first Field Day

I got my Tech license on my birthday I February this year, and immediately entered the world of HAMs, and my General in May (I have a bet with my 9 year old daughter that I will get my Extra before she get her Tech).

KE7DZZ was a great Elmer , and tons of credit to him for my somewhat successful entrance into HAM radio.
I found a few nets I could join, witch was a great help, both to get advices and to get to know people, I can not name all here that have in some way helped me out, it is about every active HAM in the Reno/Tahoe area. What a great bunch of people.

I am not new to radio, just HAM radio, I have used radio in many applications before both work and SAR and other situations, including being a kid on CB. This was helpful, since I had some understanding of what was going on. I volunteered in a couple of events so far providing my skills in races.

One thing that came up pretty soon was Field Day..
So I had to find out what field day was.
After some time I thought I had figured it out, and decided that I wanted to do Field Day.
And with some friends I discussed the opportunities; I could join a Field Day team, or make my own gig.
Just 30 minutes from where I live we have a Military Radio Historic site, called Crystal Mine; US Army Signal Corps mined crystals there for radios during WW2.
It is a great place, a lot of traffic, threes that give shade and altitude..
Saturday morning Dan (KE7NCL), my daughter Kati, our puppy and I set camp.
Dan have an Adventure trailer, kind of a utility bed trail on steroids, with a large flip open tent. We get it all set up , generator, radios (Yaesu FT-857D, Yaesu FT-890 and a Motorola MCX 1000 for VHF), Antennas (G5RV, homebrew 40m mobile, Diamond 6m/2m/70cm mobile and another home brew 2m). We are facing the parking lot and a few stop by.
Neither of us has done Field Day before, and we were totally unprepared for what was to come, the radios were buzzing of activity, using a terminology that was new to us.
After some time, I took the chance to respond to a call (VE6AO, later found out that is actually a club) a busy guy, he wasted no time, he was pure business, but he took time to guide me so I could give the right report back, thank you very much.
We had US Forest Service stopping by several times (thank you for the camping and fire permit) dropping of material to hand out to visitors.
Later on Saturday N7UVL stopped by and let us draw on his experience and knowledge, and he stayed for dinner, Salmon, with potatoes and vegetables, thank you Gary.

We took the whole thing relaxed, we was not contesting, just hanging out and having a good time. The whole weekend we worked 40 some stations on 40/20/6 and 2m SSB, not counting local communication on VHF.
I am now working on figuring out my log and update my LoTW, I will have it all done this week I hope, however if I for any reason failed to post your QSO, please email me and I will figure it out.
We had a great weekend, learned a lot, had fun, so thank you to all you contesters that was patient with us, to Gary N7UVL for your coaching, to KE7DZZ for supplying VHF radio and HF/VHF antennas and every body else that have in anyway helped us to where we are as HAMs today. -- KF7AMY