[HCRA] Field Day Encouragement

[Daniel Sullivan]

Well here you are sitting on the edge. Should I or shouldn't I? Well =
here is a tale of field day that I had operating in the UK with the =
Clifton club just outside Greenwich, England.For race fans our fd site =
was near Silverstone Raceway of F1 fame.

While I can't promise this will happen I can say that field day is just =
as fun on this side of the pond as the other! Enjoy the retransmission =
of an email I wrote home to some of you about my experiences.

Dan Sullivan
AA1TE
ex-M0CDR
__________________________________
06/08/99
London, England

Hello All,

Well your FD is fast approaching so here is how ours went. We set up our =
station, in our terms a 1A, about 10 km south of London in Wrotham, =
Kent. A beautiful site with a clear shot of the valley and, with a =
Hy-Gain beam at 20m at 100 feet, a clear shot in all directions.

We ran 100w from a Yaesu 980, into a Hy-Gain yagi at 20m, 40m/80m trap =
dipole, and a 160m dipole full size. We ran the Super Duper logging =
program, I still prefer K1EA's stuff, off a Compaq laptop from which we =
used an external monitor and external keyboard. The main shelter was a =
travel trailer, a.k.a. a Caravan, a small tea tent was also set up. =
CL&P, not Connecticut Light and Power but Clifton (ARS) Light and Power, =
was a Honda 3kw generator using a propane fueling system. (Copies of the =
clubs article in RadComm available from the RSGB.) We used 2 19kg tanks =
and 2 6 kg tanks all weekend or about  50/60 pounds of propane.

The highs of the weekend were working YB and UI on 15m, HB and HA on =
160m, and Kansas long path. Heard a VU but the pile up on 15 was too =
much. The lows were the crappy weather and the cows, both have fun =
stories. The weather was great all Saturday, high puffy clouds with =
plenty of sun light (I got one heck of a sunburn as it was the first =
seriously nice day in months!) Just as we finished with the 160 antenna =
and the tea was brewed it poured like it was Manila or Jakarta. Over 2" =
per hour stuff for about 20 minutes and then it went off and on all =
through field day. On Sunday we had a thunderstorm, which we operated =
through, that had cloud to ground so close the generator flickered (we =
stopped at that point for tea, the cool British demeanor!!!) As if that =
weren't enough it was a gorgeous evening after the last tent was down. =
Some things never change.

As for the cows, I almost had a steak! The field we were in was =
inhabited with them, as it was a working farm, so you had to be stern =
yet understanding with them because they lived there, and you had to be =
careful where you stepped (talk about tip-toeing through the daisies!) =
Anyways they have quite the appetite for rope and they prefer it with a =
side order of antenna. Unfortunately they didn't realize the longest =
rope was a power cable which we explained to them was not in their best =
interests to taste. A few moo's and a kick in the air later they =
wandered off. Only after we were done with 40/80/160 did we let our =
guard down for too long. The result was both antennas coming down as the =
cows decided to see if tea time was early and if it tasted good.

Well all in all it was fun. I got out of the city for the weekend and =
had a grand time. Next were off to historic Hastings to work the VHF =
contest. While this was only cw that one is all mode. I hear they have =
worked into Russia on 2m from here hmmm... Also Slovenia and Israel are =
attainable on 2m and 4m! This will be fun !

73 es cul de m0cdr/aa1te kn

(P.S.---05/31/02 at the VHF field day a few weeks later we worked =
Slovenia on 70Mhz and I got the longest 2m contact all weekend, the =
Pyrenees. Other stories will come out when its time to get people =
psyched for the Sept or Jan VHF contest.)


_________________________________________________________________
Dan=20
ICQ#: 47148675

      Current ICQ status:    =20

+  More ways to contact me=20
__________________________________________________________________



--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/related
  multipart/alternative
    text/plain (text body -- kept)
    text/html
  application/octet-stream
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment. Attachments are not allowed.
Please post in Plain-Text only.---