[HCARC] Winter Field Day

[Harvey N. Vordenbaum]

-----Original Message-----
From: HCARC [mailto:hcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Gary J - N5BAA
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 4:20 PM
To: hcarc at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [HCARC] Winter Field Day

Those that came for Winter Field Day yesterday had a good day – at least once we figured out how to get the station radios to transmit.  That said – I confirmed I really love Elecrafts and Yaesu’s, am ambivalent about Icoms, and confirmed I HATE Kenwoods.  


  I GUESS IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU ARE USED TO.  THE TS-570 AT THE CLUB HAS A HANDICAP BECAUSE THE INTERNAL BACKUP BATTERY DOES NOT LAST FOR SOME REASON.  I  HAVE REPLACED IT AT LEAST ONCE.  THUS SETTINGS YOU MAY PUT IN ARE NOT HELD, INCLUDING MEMORY CHANNELS.
I AM NORE FAMILIAR WITH KENWOOD HF RADIOS THAN OTHERS.
AFTER SETTING UP THE IC-746 WE GOT FROM HOLLIS WALKER, I AM CONVINCED THAT I WOULD NOT BUY AN ICOM.  THEY ARE JUST NOT INTUITIVE TO PROGRAM OR SET UP.  AND THAT REMINDS ME OF AN ICOM IC-W2A HT I HAVE  HAD FOR ABOUT 30 YEARS.  I STILL CANNOT PROGRAM MANY SETTINGS IN IT WITHOUT GETTING THE MANUAL OUT.  I HAVE A YEASU FT-470 2M/.7M HT WHICH I HAVE HAD 35+ YEARS AND IT IS MUCH EASIER TO PROGRAM.

Larry Altman and I got several good hours of Mic time, almost all calling CQ and running calls (we had about 110 QSO’s in 3 hours.  Tony Moore got some good logging time, some Mic time (he was shy calling CQ) and some valuable training time from Gale Heise on the finer points of using receiving functions on Tony’s Yaesu FT-450AT.  Terry H showed up later for moral support.  Robert Russell got some good CW time calling CQ.

Lessons learned were that we still need to do something with the antennas and operating stations at the club IF we plan to operate contests, emergency conditions from there.  We are still hamstrung with daytime operations (20,15,10)  being confined to one antenna thus one radio and one operator.  The antenna problem is so bad that even with the station Icom 746 on 40m and the Kenwood on 15 meter CW, there was significant bleed over / splatter (?) from the 15m CW onto the 40 m SSB via the 40m antenna.  We need to figure out if having the club tower trailer there with a beam antenna would allow one station to work another band with the beam antenna having the club antenna situated off the side of the beam antenna.  Another idea and question would be can two beams maybe 250-300 feet apart operate side by side without interference??  I have a set of band pass filters we can use.  One way or another, something has to improve before next Field Day.


I THINK YOU NEED TO COMPLETELY RETHINK TRYING TO MAKE A CONTEST STATION OUT OF THE RED CROSS STATION. The antenna situation is limited due to the location.  We can hardly set other towers on neighboring properties, etc.
It is primarily meant to support the R.C. with local and regional contacts.
73, HARVEY


73,

Gary J
N5BAA
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