What a great time!  This was to be just a personal effort to operate portable and make a few QSOs during a family gathering, but the antennas worked out so well that at least 14 hours were spent at the radio with other family members helping and rooting for a WAS (only missed KL7, doggone it).  Daniel (10) and Zack (12) both made their first-ever ham radio QSOs and were doing it without a "cheat sheet" after just a few, so perhaps we have a couple of new hams-in-training.  Final tally was 630 QSOs and just a few sections shy of a "clean sweep" - missed KL7, VY1/VE8, VE4, VE5, and NL (VO1/2).

The station was set up at a house on the shore of Grandview Lake, near Columbus, IN.  It was the first time I'd used my own call during Field Day since 1983, at least, maybe longer.  The rig was an IC-7000 with AT-7000 tuner feeding a 20 meter and a 40 meter dipole.  The 20 meter dipole in the picture was about 25 feet up over the edge of the lake in some locust trees, oriented N-S, and worked marvelously.  The 40 meter dipole was a bit further back, but did a great job on 80, 40, and 15 meters.  Calling CQ worked really well and I had a steady stream of callers whenever I wanted.

When the chair got too hard or the operator got too hot - a few steps down to the dock and it was swimming time.  Tough duty, huh?  After taking everything down, thunderstorms moved through in the evening to put a punctuation mark on the experience with a lightning show.

CQ FD - it doesn't get much better than this!

73, Ward N0AX