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Bill Horne[_4_] · July 2nd 08, 02:03 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated

wrote:
How did folks do on Field Day this year?

Any good stories?

I participated at K3TU, in class 2A (+VHF/UHF). We made 949 QSOs (509
CW, 440 'phone). Condx were good (20 meter QSOs at 2 AM!) the weather
was tolerable and no major breakdowns. Saw lots of old friends and
made some new ones.

I participated at WB1NHL, which is our club call, in either class 1B or
1D: we had about a fifteen minute debate about which was the right
choice. The club president said that since we were hooked up to a power
outlet at the edge of an airport parking ramp, we were class "D", and I
decided that since we weren't at home, it must be class "B".

Since the prez was flying demos for the crowd there at the airshow, I
got to run the only rig by myself - thus the "1" part - and I also got
to try and figure out the very few and extremely complicated controls of
an ICOM rig the size of a paperback book, powered by box the size of the
congressional manual of ethics, and connected to a 20 meter dipole which
I was assured was a perfect match for the rig and didn't need the tuner.

I went to look at the dipole, and quickly realized it was a new type of
NVIS radiator: Not Very Intense Skywave. It was strung between the
tongue of a trailer hitch and a tent pole, averaging about four feet off
the ground: we did, to my surprise, make some contacts on 20 meter SSB,
but I attribute that to the reflections from the various aircraft
buzzing by at 200 knots.

I gave up on finding ways to delineate the various prefixes on the dup
sheet: I started out with nothing for "W", an underline for "K", a
circle for "WA", and a box for "WB". Over the course of the two days, I
went to single and double under- and over-lines for "KA", "KB", "KD",
and "AA", with a dash on each side for "N". For 1x1 special event calls,
I just wrote the whole thing.

I would much rather have done it on a laptop, and I have a nice one, but
it wasn't there, and the one that WAS there had a display so dim that it
couldn't have put a gleam in the eye of a black cat even if the feline
was looking to get lucky at midnight in the garden of good intentions
and evil static.

There were some high points: the last time I was out on field day, I
assembled a gallery of mosquitoes who took turns mapping my face into a
perfect copy of my acne-riddled high school Junior class picture. This
time, I came prepared, with a gallon of new age sensitive guy soft skin
insect distractor, guaranteed to gently persuade carnivorous
bloodsuckers that I wasn't their type without offending their
sensibilities at the same time it acknowledged their need for
sustenance, with the result that...

Nadda. Nothing. Not a one. None to be seen, none heard, no bites. I
never even took the cap off the bottle. So, with my complexion intact
and two logsheets filled, I come to the subject of - the tent.

If I had wanted to take a steam bath, I could not have designed a more
effective or better insulated cauldron than the tent I sat in during two
days totally, completely, absolutely without so much as a zephyr,
without a single hint of an intimation that a single molecule of air
could move.

It wasn't warm. It wasn't hot. It wasn't steaming (you need water for
that). It was an inferno that would have given Dante religion. It was
akin to the surface of a minor dwarf star. I gave up on the napkins and
my handkerchief, and just alternated between shaking my febrile head and
taking short sprints out the tent flap in an effort to outrun my own
sweat. At Twelve-thirty on Sunday, I threw in a towel that was so damp
it couldn't have dried a gnat.

I'd say I had a lot of fun, but I guess it's obvious. Next year, I'll
try CW.

73,

Bill W1AC

(Remove QRM from my address for direct replies.)