What are you doing for Field Day?

[Jamison]

I'm going to be at Joshua Tree National Park in California operating on 10, 20, and 40 meters.

http://web.me.com/k6ruv/QSL/Field_Day.html

Have fun on Field Day weekend, participate if you can.

[KF5BET]

We are doing something a little different this year.

Our Field Day chairman has not told us where we will be operating from yet. He has taken the direction of using Field Day as a true test for emergency communications. He has set up a scenario of hurricanes coming into the region and we as a club will have to set up and operate in a manner indicative to an emergency.

So far we have had 5 or 6 "bulletins" about the evolving scenario. We will probably know where our location will be sometime Friday.

Friday will also be a fox hunt to start off the activities. We had one last week and Abbi and I found the fox, but I think one other person actually found it before we did.

It should be an exciting weekend and the girls and I are looking forward to it once again.

[Andy N1ORK]

I'll be operating the 10m SSB station for our local club, W1BRS - The BEARS of Manchester. We will be at an old Nike site in Manchester, CT.

[KF5BET]

Hey Andy...can you pick me up a new set of shoes....JK. That would be a pretty neat site to work from!

[Andy N1ORK]

Hey Galen! You are kidding right? It is a neat site though, only about 800' above sea level. I've done pretty well on 10m with a di-pole from there on previous FDs.

[Andy N1ORK]

Once again Field Day is upon us. I will be operating on 10m SSB for our club W1BRS (BEARS of Manchester Inc.) Using FT-857D, 100w, YT-100 LDG ATU into a 10m dipole up about 30'. We should be 9F CT, with a GOTA station (K9OEM) in our EOC EmComm vehicle. We will be using generator power and solar charged batteries. We will be located at an old Nike missile control site about 800' above sea level in Manchester, CT.
Hope to catch MANY of you this week end.
73 and Good Luck!

[N3LYT]

The W1MWV club will be at Tin MT. in NH. I am going to the the GOTA guy (get on the air) running solar charger on 17 meters with my home built rotatable dipole.

[TXiceman]

I hope you fellows up north enjoy Field Day. I think I will pass on FD this year or not get out until late on Saturday. In SE Texas it is too dang hot to enjoy FD anymore.

I suggested to ARRL that they should consider moving field day back to May so we don't have the older members passing out due to the 95 degree heat and high humidity. But they were not willing to even try a change. Nothing like being open minded.

Ken

[NN5I]

I'll be going to Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society's field day. It'll be my first Field Day in several years, because Field Day and The Greatest Camp On Earth are always the same weekend. This year I'm too broke to go to North Carolina for Camp, though I'm one of the directors; so I'll go to Field Day instead. But I'm watching Camp at JudoCamp (http://www.greatestcamp.com) -- the WebCams are on from 9 to 5 during Camp -- and kind of wishing I were there, although only two of the many mat areas are on the WebCams. It's North America's largest annual martial arts training camp, and I miss being there.

But -- wheeoo! -- I plan to enjoy Field Day.

[KF5BET]

The girls and I will be at our local club's field day location in Rayne, LA this year. Our club will be operating 3 or 4 radios (I think) on all bands. Hope the conditions are good and hopefully we can make a lot of contacts. Either way we are expecting to have a good time.

Everyone be safe and keep yourself cool and hydrated (especially those of us in the hot weather regions). "Remember to have fun, this is a hobby after all"....(heard that on 20m tonight....)

[NN5I]

I learned a little bit -- not much -- about humility at Field Day one year, long ago, in Dallas. DARC's FD setup had four or five stations, one of which was the 20m CW station. I took over at 11 pm and by midnight I had exactly 60 QSOs, which I thought was a lot. I was hot snot, a QSO a minute, for a whole hour, on 20 CW! But then a real operator sat down from midnight to 1 am. He was Frank Wolk, N5FW, and at 1 am he had put exactly 183 QSOs in the 20 CW log. More than three times my QSO rate! I was chastened, and found out how good I wasn't.

[N3LYT]

I copy and send cw about as well as I text-- close to one sentence in about 20 minutes!

[TXiceman]

Galen, what will the club be using for a call? I plan to get by our operation once it cools off a bit...W5NC will be the call.

Ken

[KF5BET]

Hey Ken:

We will be using our club call of W5DDL or possibly W5EXI. Would love to make a contact with you or anyone from the site...Will keep an ear out for W5NC.

Good luck with your activities

Galen

[wa8yxm]

Absolutly nothing.. Staying home and relaxing.

[W5DOK]

Was planning to sit around the RV, make a few contacts and just relax. Unfortunately I'm in South Fork, Co. The West Fork fire has now consumed over 60,000 acres. We were evacuated from out rv park Thursday and now we are on pre-evac from where we currently have set up. So far, no structures have been destroyed and that's pretty amazing considering the size of this thing. It's in a wilderness and national forest ares that has been devastated by pine beetles, so it has an abundance of fuel. The smoke is so thick over us that the temps don't get out of the 60's. Here's a couple of pics taken from the campground.

[NN5I]

Wow -- aren't you glad that, when you evacuate, you can take house and all.

That's scary enough to cause another kind of evacuation.

[KF5BET]

WOW those pictures are pretty ominous. Please be safe. At least you can move your house out of the way.

[TimeToGetGoing]

I was fortunate enough to operate the Digital Station with Woodbridge Wireless, operating under W4IY. I had never used a software defined radio or operated PSK before. It really was fun, and addicting.

There were 3 RVs and one TT inuse, plus several club owned trailers. They had 9A class for the contest.

They made the DC TV News http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/06/amateur-radio-operators-help-emergency-crews-in-disasters-90482.html and the local paper.


Bob
KV4MJ

[KF5BET]

Hey Bob:

what SDR were you using? We had a Flex 1500 (5 watts) but I did not play with it. Did you like the SDR? Flex came to our last hamfest and gave a presentation which was pretty neat. Have yet to "spin the dial" on one...

[N3LYT]

I was the GOTA person (N3LYT) for our club and I found that people had a hard time tuning so I fired up my lap top and used the HRD program so they could tune with the computer and a mouse. People seem to know computers certainly better then radios and felt comfortable using it over turning a dial.

[TimeToGetGoing]

Hey Bob:

what SDR were you using? We had a Flex 1500 (5 watts) but I did not play with it. Did you like the SDR? Flex came to our last hamfest and gave a presentation which was pretty neat. Have yet to "spin the dial" on one...

Galen,
It was a Flex 5000. You can see it in the video, briefly, and in the still photo on the page, it is the small blue box to the left of the operator.

I was operating at about 50 watts on a dipole. Made contacts across the Eastern US, from Maine to Florida...Ontario Canada and west to Kentucky.

If you watch the video in my OP, you will see what the screen looks like at time code 1:07 (transmitting) and 1:43 (receiving). (BTW I am not shown in the video...I was successful in avoiding the camera.)

Bob
KV4MJ

[NN5I]

Ask not what you can do for Field Day. Ask what Field Day can do for you.