[Elecraft] Field Day tips

[Milt -- N5IA]

I concur with all of the tips except the saying “Don’t waste your time with SSB on FD”.  

And I will add that anytime you go above Class 2A there should be at least ONE SSB station.  You will note the quantity of SSB Q's by one SSB station vs. the two CW stations in the listing below.  All the ops, both modes, were high level, very capable at their mode.  The CW ops included high level contesters N2IC, WB0O, NI5L and N5IA. 

The case can be made that the SSB station performed at a higher level than the CW stations.  This is all with solar powered 5 Watt level transmissions.

The following is a listing of the stats for the national record set by the Eastern Arizona Amateur Radio Society (EAARS) operation from 2005.  This record held for 8 years until broken by a New Mexico group this past year ('13).

YEAR     CALL     LOCATION             CLASS    CW Q’s   SSB Q’s  N/T Q’s  GOTA Q’s  TOTAL Q’s    BONUS      SCORE                         PLACE

2005    K7EAR    Clark Pk.              3A QRP     1,193        822                          67             2,082          1,490       17,865        #1 national, 3A, and #6 national, all classes.

The HF transceivers, including the GOTA, were all Elecraft K-2's.  Photos of the operation can be viewed at http://www.eaars.org/05fieldday.html 

73 de Milt, N5IA


-----Original Message----- 
From: Bill Frantz 
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 7:11 PM 
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net 
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Field Day tips 

On 6/16/14 at 11:30 PM, jim at audiosystemsgroup.com (Jim Brown) wrote:

>4) Don't waste your time with SSB on FD. CW can be reasonably 
>competitive QRP, and a lot of fun. SSB only be described as a 
>struggle, and is definitely not fun. Been there, done that, 
>burned the Tee shirt. :)

The last detailed QSO/mode/band I can find is from the West 
Valley Amateur Radio Association's in 2011. We were 7A (battery 
QRP). We had 3 HF CW stations, 3 HF SSB stations, an HF digital 
station, a GOTA station, a satellite station, and a VHF station.

While our prime goal for field day is to have fun, we have fun 
by erecting the best antennas we can, trying to get as many 
people on the air as possible, and ending with a good score. We 
set the all-time record for 7A that year and have set a  number 
of other records for various numbers of transmitters in other years.

Call: K6EI
GOTA Call: W6ZZZ Class: 7A QRP
QTH: Mora Hill, CA Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
80:  119    84     0
40:  325   169    46
20:  639   195    87
15:  339   135    11
10:    0    41     0
6:     1    37     0
2:     0    16     0
222:   0     2
432:   0     5
1.2:   0     1
----------------------
     1423   685   144

Total Score = 20,845
Comments:
QSO Points x Power Mult = 19,095 GOTA Bonus Points = 1,750
Total QSO Points + Bonus Pts = 20,845

Note that while most of our points came from CW, significant 
number of points come from phone and digital. As you get into 
the larger number of transmitters, QRP digital and phone become 
an important part of the mix. QRP digital is always fun and 
gives good scores. QRP SSB is fun with good antennas and propagation.

73 Bill AE6JV




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