6. Events

June 22/23, 2024, FIELD DAY ADVERSITIES! 

Despite a heat index of 105 degrees and the building AC being broken we still participated in the event! 

It's supposed to be an exercise for providing Emergency Communications in a time of need. As one of the volunteer amateur radio operators that was deployed to Katrina 2005, YOU are not working in an air-conditioned building 90% of the time. 

Learning how to use lower RF power output so the radio does not stop transmitting due to excessive over heating is just as much the learning process as how to make and maintain contacts. 

Other issues: a week before Field Day. our rotor on the main antenna was struck by lightning and was not working so we could not rotate the 6-10-15 & 20-meter beams. 

They were facing West which worked out for us since a large portion of the continental US is in that direction. Even at that disadvantage, we still worked a lot of states to the south and north off the sides of the beam and a handful of states off the backside of the beams.  

Starting out 6 and 10 meters was having occasional band openings, by 3 P.M. 15 meters opened up and ran hot all day long.  Many contacts were made on 15-20 & 40 most of the day.

OPS-2 had the fan dipole meet its end last year as weather, wind and ice had taken a toll on the main components and had to be replaced. We accomplished our goal of testing out the new multiband Off-Center Fed Dipole that worked on 10-80 meters coast to coast and border to border with great results.  

Steve KC8VDT brought his motor home to work out of and we did not have a way to launch a support rope over the arm of the parking lot light post like we would normally do. So G5RV fans here is something to try on your next outing. He ties the ends of the copper wire portion of the antenna basically facing North and South then untwisted the ladder line to the East forming the familiar "T" shape only horizontally! 

It worked well making many 20-meter contacts! So I guess he made a G5RV NVIS antenna. Steve also made contacts on 10-15 and 40 too! 

By 9 P.M. we had covered almost the entire Continental United States and Hawaii on the antenna that we could not rotate and 100 watts, we were only missing 4 of the sections in mid America where tornado warnings had been issued earlier in the day and a couple of sections on the east coast and Alaska.  (see map below)

Our goal this year was to test out the newly acquired Kenwood TS-590SG at OPS-1 and the new Off-Center Fed dipole on OPS-2, both were a big success!

This year was what I believe Field Day is all about. Not as much as what your SCORE is at the end of the day, but how to overcome the weather, uncomfortable operating conditions, making things work for you even though they may not be working perfectly, to make those contacts and keep emergency communications going!

We did that! And will continue to do that! That is what amateur radio is all about!