[HCARC] Field Day Observations

[Gary J - N5BAA]

First, I would like to thank all of you who participated in Field Day, especially those of you who brought goodies to eat and MOST ESPECIALLY those of you who indicated in advance  that you would be there to support Field Day.  Field Day is quite an undertaking and as the COORDINATOR (it’s your Field Day, not mine) and to go into the weekend not knowing what/who would be there supporting the endeavor is a scary event at the very least.  PLEASE next year support the COORDINATOR with a commitment in advance that you would be there (1) HELP SET UP, (2) OPERATE, (3) HELP TEAR DOWN, AND (4) HELP WITH FOOD.  Not knowing the size of the crew available is uncomfortable at the very least, and makes for significant amounts of unnecessary worry.  ALL that I kept seeing on the Reflector was this person and that person, etc etc would not be attending.  I began to wonder if I was going to be the only one in attendance – nah, I knew I could count on Terry H, Robert Russell, Mike and Tony (our resident Brits), Charlie, Dale and Chuck.  Fortunately many more showed up.  I passed out a few paracord key chains last night to guys whom I had sufficient little white letter and number cubes to make their call signs.  I have more letter and number cubes coming to finally make one for each club member that signed our attendance sheet as a remembrance of FD 2014 and to thank you in some small way.

Second, if we decide to hold Field Day again at the Red Cross (RC) we need to do something about the antenna situation.  Having only one of 4 coax positions connecting to the 3 antennas on the roof is almost unworkable.  During the day at least one of the antennas (40/20) are not being used and the same goes for the night (80/40 and possibly 20).  We need to make sure that the antennas can be uncoupled and attachable to the “Extra Coax” position.  The coax on the outside need to be color coded just the same as they are now in the radio room, except that the 80/40/20 each need their own color coding system to prevent them from being hooked up wrong.  We also need to be able to put up additional antennas.  I didn’t get to Dr Jim early enough to get the club’s tower trailer moved down and that is my fault.  If the club and Dr Jim are amenable and since Dr Jim is trying I understand to sell his ranch, I propose to move the trailer down to my property in Center Point.  It needs some welding done and since I am not trying to sell my property I can probably make it easier for club members to get for use than having it in Fredericksburg.  Dr Jim is a very busy man and sometimes it is hard to get in his busy schedule.  All of my “busy” is usually feeding my sheep and they don’t wear watches or have complex schedules.  Having the tower trailer at Field Day would allow us to get better separation between the “other antennas” we might want to string up.  To that end we did leave a semi-permanent pulley and halyard on the tower to obviate needing to climb the tower next year to put up a dipole.  I just got a Butternut HF-5B beam antenna from Gale Heise that should be easier to assemble and put up on the tower trailer next year – it only has a 12 foot long beam and is much smaller than the Cushcraft A4S we used last year.  That will give us additional 20/17/15/12/10 meter capability however only 20/15/10 are usable on Field Day.  As it turns out according to the presentation by the MARS folks last night 6 meters might have been a good band and maybe even 10 meters.  We tried some 10 meters but apparently not enough.  We need access to the Ionosond info that Lew spoke about last night for Field Day too.  All it would take is a computer attached to the internet.  We wouldn’t have to guess the bands to use.

Third – someone needs to instruct me in the proper use of the Band Pass filters I picked up earlier this year for Field Day use.  Would they have helped keep one local radio from talking to another??  Would they permit more than one radio to be on 15 or 20 meters (different antennas) at the same time??  How far apart do the antennas/radios need to be to safely be one the same band??  There is so much I don’t know about operating in a radio dense situation.  Of course that is what Field Day is supposed to teach us.

last there were about 38 total attendees prior to passing the attendance sheet last night.  Many were guests several of whom are very interested in a Ham radio.

Thanks again to Ruthie Guida for making the bread and Banana bread.  The ability to make brisket sandwiches and have a sweet pick me up at 2 am was invaluable.

Thanks also to the Red Cross for the use of their facility – it was great and I hope we left it in as good a condition as we found it.

Gary J
N5BAA
HCARC Secretary
2014 Field Day COORDINATOR