07/08/2010 | W6TD

 

2010 proves the old saying “It gets better every year” yet again. Kurt, W6PH and the Southern Inyo boys played host to the Edwards AFB Range Rats in the Alabama Hill in the shadow of Mount Whitney. Kurt’s rustic cabin on Lone Pine creek saw some real hot action and not just the chili. 2010 was a year of firsts. First year with monobanders, first time space aliens attack and first for Field Days since FD 1 The W6TD setup sported a 2el 40 and 3el 20 monobanders, an A3 with 40M, an 80M sloper, a “PH” modified HyTower on 75, my AH4/military vertical and some 6 and 2M halos. A pair of IC7000s and a K3 provided the trons. The team of W6PH, K6VR, K6ZZ, W6IY, W1MD (not a doc)  AD6NR and myself, KI6VC blasted out 2246 Qs in class 3A. We also hacked away at 4 gallons of GigaHurtz chili, piles of bacon/cheese burgers and all the fix’ens, washing it all down with several styles of homebrew. I’m a little unclear on why some passed up on breakfast?? W6PH did a bang up job with his military masts and antenna voodoo. It’s rumored he can make a 160 L out of a paperclip! Kurt also made sure we all had Field Day Tee shirts and had the foresight to order up extra wind and bugs. Good show OM.   K6ZZ’s homebrew tower trailer and A3 has been a mainstay for us and this year was no different. Site security was provided by FieldDayDawgs Inc.   Meko, the big dog found Kurt’s lawn to his liking while Sparky, the pup, was everywhere at once. They did a super job of clearing out Osama bin Bunny and his ilk, watched over the cheese supplies and did some fancy plate licking. After the “wet nose” licky action  Marty W1MD(nope) sez “Sparky needs a snooze button!” The lads do luv camping.  We all know Murphy was born on FD and he stopped by W6TD for some cake.  Our networking setup running N1MM was purring along when we lost the PC/0, the master. Seems its WiFi unit bailed…then the router went nuts with strange IP addresses. Being bless with some Dilberts, the problems were solved with some CAT5 and slick networking knowhow. Once the link was up and Qs flowed, we speculated on the problem. Hackers? The Taliban?  The Bishop field day group? A few more homebrews, a look at router logs, the full moon and we settled on space aliens looking for some chili. A personal high point came on Sunday morning with a 15M opening. W1MD (not) was running 20 CW and I had 15 CW. Watching the 10/100 station rate #s we were tied! Then the network talk message came “Want a Q race…” W1MD (no) is a bigtime DX contester. Me, I’m “not the CW op” but I have been “in training” so I go for the throw-down. The rates bounced back and forth but stayed close … the network smack talk flowed. Then we noticed W6IY on 40 fone was right up there so now it’s a three way race. Dennis played that that 7000 like Charlie Daniels while Marty and I slugged it out on cw. After 2 hours 15 opened to the east coast and I THINK I got the edge. Hey Marty BigDawg on your six!! Special Kudos to Dennis W6IY and John AD6NR for a super effort. Neither is a “contest op” but they made 40M their play thing…racking up impressive Q #s and logging lots of time in the chair. Tip of the Hat to you boys.   For the first time ever on any Field Day EVER…I got the complain…No it wasn’t the homebrew…No not the space aliens…I got…”The burgers were TOO BIG or maybe it was “almost” too big. Next year I’ll make’em bigger. We are still waiting on the League’s homebrew ruling. It’s not commercial brew so there should be bonus points. A new criteria for site selection…3G coverage. -- KI6VC