[Elecraft] Field Day Report

[Howard Hoyt]

Hi all,

Our OCRA (Orange County Radio Amateurs) club ran 9A once again as W4EZ 
this year, trying for a repeat or improvement on our 3rd place national 
effort of last year.  Here was our layout (well, almost):

https://groups.io/g/OCRA-DFMA/photo/39174/1?p=Name,,,20,1,0,0

Installing that many antennas in the requisite 1000 ft circle with 
minimal mutual interference is a real feat, let me tell you! We even had 
a sagging 80M OCF dipole tangle with a beam at one point...

This year we finally achieved our long-term goal of all Elecraft 
transmitters.  Our testing over the last few years agrees with the 
collated test results by K9YC here:

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/TXNoise.pdf

Although a few years old, his results agree with our tests that the K3 
has the lowest in-band phase noise of any we have tested. This has been 
a real problem in past years, with almost all Yaecomwood transmitters we 
tried txing intolerable levels of phase noise like this Kenwood (20M, 
200 KHz spacing) running SSB from last year as recorded in the CW shack:

https://proaudioeng.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Kenwood-tx-phase-noise.mp4 


This year we had 7 Elecraft K3s and two KX3s.  The only phase noise 
issues we had were from the one KX3 running FT8 digi, and mostly ~S3-5 
when a beam was pointed towards the digi antenna from ~300 feet away 
with a 30 KHz spacing.  Other than that we were really pleased to have 
finally been almost free from the band-shattering noise experienced in 
previous years.  Kudos to Elecraft for such great Tx performance!

Overall the band condx were OK although not great from central NC, 
although a surprising appearance of 6 and 10 meter propagation helped!  
It is always a challenge contesting QRP and it is difficult to break 
pile-ups, so running as opposed to S&P is often the best bet.  Of course 
running is not a panacea when QRP, I must have been stomped on a dozen 
times by others who (to give them the benefit of the doubt) didn't hear 
me CQing on channel.

We once again attempted to wireless network N1MM over all 9 stations, 
but it became erratic so logging was done in several networked pods 
instead.  We won't know the total score until the logs are collated.

I would say the biggest challenge we faced is one I heard from other 
groups: it is getting to the point where a lot of heavy lifting (we had 
6 towers) is difficult with a bunch of old fogies.  If large FD efforts 
like W4EZ are to continue youth outreach is not an option.  
Nevertheless, at least this year no one was hurt, except for many a 
branch from lines shot over trees, and many a burger and other 
refreshments were enjoyed as well!

Cheers & 73,

Howie - WA4PSC