KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Field Day fun, 2016 edition

Posted: 28 Jun 2016 12:59 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kb6nu...m_medium=email


This years Field Day was a blast as usual. In fact, in some ways it was a
lot more fun than previous years. Here are some random notesÂ*about this
years Field Day.
Setting up the GOTA station antenna.

Setup. Setup was much easier this year, mainly because I did not make it
out to the site on Friday evening. I felt a little guilty about that, but
as it turned out, I neednt have. There were quite a few new members—new
members who attended my classes—who did show up, so my help wasnt really
needed.

What I did do was get the clubs IC-746PRO and checked it out on Friday. The
power cord needed some surgery, i.e. I replaced the huge lugs that someone
had put on it with smaller ones that worked a lot better on the Astron
power supply that we used.

On Saturday morning, after breakfast at a local diner with our crew, we got
over to the site about 9:30 am. With help from Rich KA8BMA, Prem AC8QV,
Faye KE8DDB, and Joe AC8ES, we set up the 40m/20m fan dipole, supported by
my surplus fiberglass mast set. Weve been using this setup so long, and
there was very little wind, so that went up quickly.

Rick had brought extension cords, which he ran over to the generator, so we
had power. Finally, we connected up the radio, and we had the station on
the air (in record time) by 11 am. After that, we just sat around for a
while enjoying the nice weather. Â*The weather was so much nicer than last
year, when we experienced monsoon-like conditions.

I tuned around a bit and answered a few CQs and called CQ almost Field Day
a couple of times. The bands seemed to be in pretty good shape, and we were
making contacts left and right. I was even running a frequency, calling
QRZ?Â*after saying 73 to the previous contact.

Get on the Air (GOTA).Â*I was again the head coach for this years GOTA
station. Â*Seeing as how we are in Ann Arbor, MI, home of the University of
Michigan, you could say that I was the Jim Harbaugh of Field Day. I had a
lot of great assistant coaches, too, including Rick KA8BMA, Mark W8MP,
Dinesh AB3DC, and probably one or two more that Im forgetting. Their
assistance made it a lot easier on me.

One nice thing is that we had no shortage of operators for this years GOTA
station. I e-mailed the students who attended my January class and the
class I held just a week and a half ago, and many of them showed up. There
were five operators lined up at 2 pm Saturday when we started operating.

After a little tutorial on how to tune for stations calling CQ Field Day
and then how to reply and give the exchange, I showed them how to log the
contact on the computer. To make it as easy as possible, I made up a cheat
sheet with our call, W8PGW, spelled phonetically. Also on the cheat sheet
was what to say for the exchange, THANK YOU. PLEASE COPY THREE ALPHA
MICHIGAN, MIKE INDIA.

They struggled a little through their first contacts, but eventually, most
of them got the hang of it. Three of the operators made more than the 20
contacts needed to get the 20 bonus points in addition to the contact
points. We made a total of 119 contacts in all, mostly on 40m SSB.
Yours truly coaching Steve, W8AYN, through his first FD QSO.

One of the operators was ten-year-old Sofi. She passed the test on
Saturday, June 18, but unfortunately did not have her call sign yet. I
showed her what to do, coached her through her first contact, and then she
made three more.

I think shed still be sitting there if her mother hadnt made her give her
eight-year-old brother a turn. He made two contacts, and then the parents
said that they had to leave. Im sure that well be seeing Sofi again at next
yearsÂ*Field Day.

About 4 am, Mark W8MP, showed up, and shortly after, Noah, one of his sons
friends, joined us. Although the GOTA rig had been disconnected so that it
didnt walk off on us, we immediately decided to fire it up again. After a
little coaching from me, Noah was off to the races, and when our CW station
operator decided to call it a night, I took over the CW station and Mark
took over as GOTA coach. All told, Noah made 30 contacts, including the
contact with Hawaii.

Finally, on Sunday, we even got our elected official to make a contact. How
cool is that?

If your club doesnt have a GOTA station, youre missing out on one of the
best things about Field Day. Its not the points, either. Its about the fun
that both the participants and the coaches have.

Overall activity. While this was a very successful Field Day for our club,
it seemed to me that overall activity was down. It wasnt hard at all to
find an open frequency on CW, and a couple of other guys commented on this.
Activity will probably only get worse over the next couple of years, as we
hit the sunspot cycle minimum.

Well, another Field Day is in the log. We all had a lot more fun because of
the participation of everyone that helped set up, operate, provide food and
drink, greet visitors, and tear down. Im already looking forward to next
year.



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