[CTSARA] SARA Field Day Details

[ranceiii at aol.com]

Hello everybody,
In my capacity as SARA Field Day Captain, I would like to welcome all hams and aspiring hams in our area to participate in or visit our Field Day operation this weekend.
It is important to point out that our QTH for Field Day site has changed, as we will be operating this year from the baseball fields in back of the Northeast Elementary School, which is located at 82 Scofieldtown.Rd.
If that address sounds familiar, it's because the school is located right across the street from the Stamford Observatory at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center. I would like to thank the SM&NC for allowing us to operate from their grounds for the last 20 years, but recent construction and the addition of some new buildings on the site make it impractical to operate competitively from there any longer.

The Northeast School site is at least 95% as good a place to operate from as the SM&NC. It turns out that we loose about 30 ' in altitude, but the arrangement of the trees that surround the baseball fields makes for very easy installation of our antennas, and overall, it's a very well laid out lot for our purposes.

I would like to thank Captain Lombardo of the Stamford Police Dept for suggesting the site, and then acting as our reference and facilitator while I was dealing with the Facilities Dept of the Stamford Bd of Education.  I would also like to thank Michele O'Brien of the Facilities Dept, and our friends in the Risk Management Dept, who made the final decision to let us use the property.  Ernest Laug should be praised for maintaining a great rapport with the Risk Management guys over the years, which I believe played a major role in us getting their approval for our permit, as there were some complications involved.  I believe that if we handle our operations carefully, we will be able to use the site for many years to come. 

We are 99% certain at this point that we will be operating 2A this year, and we intend to keep our stations firing for the entire 24 hour period, as always.  That's how competitive clubs handle Field Day!

However, if we can get one more seriously competitive CW operator to operate with the 2 experienced CW operators we already have commitments from, we could go 3A.

If you are a recently licensed ham, an aspiring ham, or a ham who has not been on the air in ages, we promise to run the best GOTA operation in the entire state, and you are welcome to participate.  If you want to see what HF operation is all about, we will teach you all about it over the course of the 24 hours.

For equipment, this year we will be deploying an ICOM 7610 in the SSB station, along with 2 ICOM 7300s.
We will serving dinner between 6:00-6:30 on Saturday evening, and all local hams and aspiring hams are welcome to join us, regardless of which club you come from, or if you are unaffiliated. 

If you are SARA club member, then dinner is on the house, if not, we would like to suggest a $5 voluntary donation to help us cover expenses.
This years menu will include:
HamburgersHot DogsChile 
Corn on the cob
Potato Salad
If any would like to bring an entree or desert to enhance our offerings, it would be very much appreciated.

We will be going pretty lean on soda this year to save money, so if you really like soda, you may want to bring some along for yourself.

If you have any questions regarding our Field Day operation, or want to make a commitment to our effort,please give me a call at (203) 357-9293, or email me at ranceiii at aol.com.

Otherwise, I will see you on Saturday, and we will have some serious fun!

Thanks, and 73,Terry MartinSARA Field Day Captain