This year Jackson County Amateur Radio & Magnolia DX Associations worked as a team to put on Field Day 2010. Sadly some members of both did not like this idea and did not join us at field day or follow the spirit of amateur radio to take amateur radio to the public. I think a good bit of the tension felt had more to do with BPs oil spill and the worries we all face along the gulf coast then to do with ham radio operators. With that said this was still the best ARRL Field Day seen by many. Most visitors and every ham that was there had shining complements about Field Day 2010. Sorry some of you missed the fun.

Let me take time to thank Pascagoula Schools again the last two years the staff of the schools systems have gone above and beyond to show amateurs that they have the best equipment, facilities and staff for them to tackle any communications needs that may arise. JacksonCounty can truly feel safe in the leadership of PSD. They have the communities best interests at heart and their eyes focused on the safety and education of the entire community and not just our children. I also want to thank the community for showing up and volunteering from helping set up and tears down to cooking 70 pounds of chicken. We in JacksonCounty are blessed with a tight nit and strong community.

Set up went well with little or no worries at all rigs got into the bus quickly and were set far enough apart to allow comfortable working spaces. Sleeping areas inside the school were cool and quite a welcome partnership for tired operators. Saturday most were ready to see what contest start times would bring. WLOX again came out and did some filming of the Field Day site and operators. Sadly though BPs oil spill hit Pascagoula beaches just hours after they shot the b-roll film and they have not aired the film they shot. We have been promised that they will put the video on their web site soon. The Sun Herald also did a nice write up on Field Day for the two clubs.

Contest time came and the A index was high so bands were very noise filled and tough to hear call signs and reports but the operators attacked and worked stations with a controlled frenzy. The over night shift found the low bands to noisy and that slowed points along the gulf coast. Maybe we will still have a good showing in the scores but we fell short of the point total we all believed we could have made. Just before 11AM Sunday two large thunderstorms closed in on our location less then a mile off the gulf coast and we had to go to ground. This fact did not stop the fun many of the youth played cards and listened to hams tell stories of DX and traffic passing during hurricanes past.

We had a working ham lounge with food, drinks, DX videos running and some fine old radios to talk about and touch. The GOTA station was used and we have 11 new people that want to take classes from MDXA to join as new hams. One hundred and nineteen people filed through the Pascagoula ATC and to a person everyone was impressed by all the different activities available to hams and non-hams. We even had a free raffle with over 30 prizes with an ICOM 2200H as the top prize!

We at JCARA and MDXA can not thank everyone enough and to list everyone would take up another full soap box page. I hope everyone that was involved knows how their contribution to Field Day 2010 mattered.