[K3PZN-List] FD2008 Advanced Planning

[John Hart]

To all,

I fully agree that better antennas (some gain or more gain) is a better way 
to go than more power at the transmitter.  Spreading out the antennas will 
help with the cross-band and same-band interfierence between stations and 
modes.  From a digital mode standpoint, cutting down on or eliminating the 
blast from other modes would make it alot easlier and faster to rack up more 
points.  This is especially true when operating PSK-31 as it is somewhat 
sensitive to getting the waterfall track chopped up by CW or Phone.  During 
FD2007, I moved my Outback Antenna about 40 feet towards the parking lot and 
grounded it to my truck, this improved my overall recieve ability to read 
PSK-31 signals over the local CW and Phone RF.  My Outback Antenna may not 
be the best for Field Day, but it was quick to go up and easy to use.  Next 
year, I hope to use something better and located farther away from other 
antennas.  I'm sure we all can do better if we spreadout and use the full 
1000 foot diameter site that is allowed.

We need to experiment with some different types of gain antennas and see how 
they would fit in at the FTC (as a location example).  Are we too close to 
the airport for any balloon supported antennas for HF?

The Packet Station was a great idea and I liked the video projector approach 
to allow everyone in the room to see the incoming messages.

Does anyone make any inexpensive narrow (25 to 50 KHZ) bandpass filters that 
we could add outboard to the front of our equipment during Field Day to help 
with the RF overload from band to band.  The Dunestar devices are OK but I 
understand that they are primarily designed for the transmit side of the 
operation.

JUST A THOUGHT OR TWO,

John, K3KWO