Our Beaver Valley Amateur Radio Association (BVARA) here in Beaver County completed Field Day activities at the Old Economy County Park where we operated as W3SGJ - 3A - WPA.  Our plan was for 4A operations but a medical emergency of one of our members (and the weather) gave us sufficient reason to change our Class to 3A.

  Our Plan included four stations, use of the shelter as our 'Pavilion' for food, conversation, and relaxation with each of the stations located in shelters separated by at least 300 feet.  Our Plan included six antennas and three generators.  Bandpass filters, generator grounding, and AC filters on the generators provided us with excellent operation.  Because of the severe threat of continued rains, we chose not to use our tri-band yagi on a trailer for 10-15-20 meters that fed into a home-brew triplexer.  Doublet, vertical, and dipole antennas provided sufficient coverage for us, given the weather conditions.   We operated primarily SSB with some PSK-31 that resulted in contacts on 40, 20, 15, and 6 meters.  We were successful in having the week declared Amateur Radio Week in Beaver County with a Proclamation signed by all three county commissioners.  We had ARRL information brochures for visitors and conducted some training for the newer hams.  Our covered-dish dinner on Friday night was very well attended.  Tear-down activities in the rain on Sunday was a final 'good bye' from the weather 'gods' for our efforts. But we had fun!   We achieved 260 contacts for 281 points with 74 sections contacted. Only ten ARRL sections remained.  Although the number of contacts was down from the 2014 results, we felt a sense of satisfaction knowing that under adverse conditions we were able to continue to safely operate.  But beyond that, we acted as a proving and training ground for newer hams to the hobby and welcomed visiting hams to try their hand at operations.  For the oldest club in Western Pennsylvania (established in 1923) we took pride in continuing the tradition of our early founders.   Despite the rain and wind and rain and wind, some nice pictures of people were obtained.  They and other club activities can be found by going directly to:   www.flickr/photos/w3sgj   or by going to our web site and scrolling down to the photostream pictures at:   www.w3sgj.org   If you select Albums, you can view just the 2015 Field Day pictures.