06/24/2002 | K4HSM We set up a tower for the VHF and UHF about 3 weeks ago for the VHF contest but were not able to participate in that contest due to other sudden commitments. We left the tower up for Field Day, but never made a contact on VHF/UHF.

We used a battery box that has 2 gel-cells that are plugged into a power inverter and a charger. When Battery A is being used, the charger will re-charge Battery B until it is fully charged then switch into standby mode. Then when we switch to Battery B the process is reversed.

Eddie, KB9EBA designed and built the box, while Moe, KE4CQW, supplied the parts necessary. I call it The Beast but I dont think we ever came up with an official name for it.

We set up two FT-100s along with laptops for recording contacts, along with tuners.

My FT-100D was set up with the accompanying ATAS-100 attached to the gutter for some form of grounding. Moe, KE4CQW, brought his FT-100 and laptop as well, making us 2-E.

Along with my ATAS-100, we had a G5RV dipole, R-5 vertical, and a 10-meter vertical that Jason, KF4VDX, brought over along with his 10-meter rig. During periods when one of the two stations was not active he ran his 10-meter rig for a few contacts but 10-meters unfortunately refused to cooperate and 17 total contacts were made.

Moe kept it on 40M for most of Field Day, but around sunrise the next morning I commandeered it and ran 80M while everyone slept. 80M was noisy, but I was still able to squeeze out a lot of contacts over 2-3 hours.

Moes station was used for 40 and 80M on the dipole thru a tuner, while mine was used for 10m-20m on the R-5 vertical.

We started out with me on 15 meters and Moe on 40. I was on the ATAS-100 and quickly found that a lot of stations werent hearing me. So I switched to the R-5 vertical and it made a world of difference. Although since I believe many Field Day stations were horizontal with dipoles strung into trees in parks across the country, it hindered a lot of contact ops I would have otherwise had on HF.

Moe stuck to 40 meters like glue and got help on occasion from Jason and Eddie. For some reason I was the only one using my station for most of Field Day, although we both had similar setups. My wife, Jessie, K4RLJ and Dawn, KE4WFM, occupied my station early Sunday morning but was only able to make 2 contacts during their short stint. I think since 40 meters was the most active of all the bands this is why it was so difficult to operate at my station, since many stations on 10-20 were not hearing us or were not heard period by band conditions.

One thing I noticed about running an echo station (our first attempt at an echo station) was the fact that so many people out there had trouble understanding echo and referring to us as alpha until we corrected them. Im not sure if it was the low power, the noisy band conditions, or my accent, or a combination of all three!

We were also disappointed in the lack of activity in VHF and UHF. We tried 6 meters thru my ATAS-100 but unfortunately were not able to make a contact as I had feared. We may attempt to get a 6-meter dipole for next year specifically for field day.

I was also surprised at how noisy the bands were for Field Day and I dont mean the many stations participating. Even with DSP running we had a lot of noise and static on all bands, especially 80 meters.

One pleasant surprise was the amount of echo stations we contacted. We all thought wed be a rare jewel since there were so few echo stations overall in the final results from last years field day (121 were 1 echo stations last year and just 24 ran 2 echo) but it felt like we heard a lot more echo stations than what we expected to hear. I guess we werent the only ones who noticed this lack of echo stations as well. I hope we will see quite a few more come time for the results to be published.

As for lessons learned, I think we will try to better utilize our radio time come next Field Day. We left 1 station unmanned for a long time and I personally think we would have sufficed with just 1 station running between the group, dividing up radio time so that not everyone was trying to use the radio and not everyone was sleeping!

Also, since none of us are proficient in CW, we felt we lost a lot of potential points in this area. Hopefully we can get more involved in CW or we can get people with CW capability to come out and join the fun.

However, we all enjoyed ourselves and thats what counted the most. We are already talking about how and where we will have Field Day next year and we want to continue on as an echo station. The beast helped us well and we hope it will continue to do so for us in future Field Days.

Operators:
Greg Williams, K4HSM
Eddie Henke, KB9EBA
Moe Brewer, KE4CQW
Jason Roach, KF4VDX
Jessie Williams, K4RLJ
Dawn Wilson, KE4WFM
Lucy Brewer, KE4RLK
Kathy Ward, KG4EUL -- K4HSM