[nrv-hams] Fw: Notes from Field Day

Mon Jul 1 15:50:19 EDT 2013

I want to support every piece of Donnie's analysis.   We can GOTA for
everyone,  as high a power as we can tolerate, making it easy for all and
then run QRP cw.  The GOTA doesnt impact the class and doesn't even need to
operate on the same power source!

That station should be easily accessible and easy to use and get great
results.

At other stations I've been known to need a crowbar to remove me from the
seat. The seats at the park provided a built in crow bar of discomfort
(PITA).  My backside hurt for a couple of days even though I got up for
relief.

These small gripes aside, this was a great FD.

Bob
HY
 On Jun 27, 2013 8:33 AM, "Carter Craigie" <carter128 at verizon.net> wrote:

>
> From: D. S. Coleman Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 2:03 PM
>
> **********************************************************
> Thoughts on Field Day 2013:
>
> Another Field Day is now history and I am writing these thoughts while
> the muscles still ache and I still remember how they got that way.
> There was a lot to like about this FD and a fine time was had by
> hopefully all.  However, there are also always a few kinks that
> crop-up, which is an opportunity for us to make things better the next
> time around.
>
> I especially enjoyed the opportunity to use N6QDO's Elecraft KX-3 rig.
> The little rig is just a delight and I was very impressed by its
> performance, even though the experience will cost me some money,
> because now I have to have one!  My K2 has always been my favorite
> Field Day rig, but I can see the KX-3 having an edge in several areas,
> one being the native integration of voice, CW, and digital operations.
> You could use all three modes with this rig on the fly, which would
> make it fantastically flexible as a Field Day rig.
>
> It was great having multiple K2's on site!  I brought my own K2, as
> did N3AO and N4HY. I do not know how many total QSO's were made by
> N4NRV during FD, but about 85% of the contacts were made with these
> QRP K2's on CW.  The phone station ran at 100-watts, which set the
> power class for us.  Had the phone station run QRP, or better yet,
> been used under a different call sign as a GOTA station, we could have
> earned the 5X power multiplier and our score would have been about
> 7000 points, instead of the 1500 or so that we did this time around.
>
> We do need to work on some procedural issues, one being the use of the
> bandpass filters.  The filter for the phone station was damaged by
> transmitting high power on the wrong band, which burned out one of the
> coupling capacitors.  The repair will be easy though, as we built the
> filters the way that we did knowing full well that this would happen
> eventually.  That's to be expected from time to time, bleary eyed
> sleep-deprived humans being as they are.  I will make a PDF on the
> proper use of the bandpass filters and we should also make an
> instruction card to be attached to each unit.  The filters worked
> well, as I do not recall hearing any interference from the other two
> stations, but being able to operate two transmitters on the same band
> and the same times requires good separation of the antennas, since the
> filters cannot help that situation.
>
> The logging software had a couple of little issues that took a few
> minutes to sort out.  One laptop was dedicated to being the master
> computer, but a different laptop was started first and thought it was
> master.  AJ4HJ gave  telephone support and we collectively convinced
> the errant laptop that it was really not the master and N4HY was able
> to get everything reset and even merged the separate log that had been
> growing independently into the master.  We thought we had lost some
> 15-meter QSO's, but they are there and, as best as I can tell, the log
> is okay.  There was a momentary scare in the morning, when the master
> computer went to sleep after I finally had to sleep, but everything is
> okay before dawn when the computer and CW op both woke up and started
> operating again.
>
> The ergonomics of the stations left a bit to be desired, which was the
> source of a fair number of aching muscles. Among other things, we
> needed much better seats, with much thicker padding.  After hours of
> operating, I had visions of a nice hammock chair with lumbar support
> and a lot less cramped than a picnic bench covered in cables that had
> to be dodged.  There were a few times that I wished that the computer
> mouse was separate as some of laptops were a little finicky. Also,
> let's tape the CAT-5 network cabling to the table top to keep it out
> of harm's way.
>
> The coffee was excellent, BTW.  One young gentlemen made awesome
> coffee several times, which kept me going for hours. Life was good.
> :-)
>
> Did anyone copy the ARRL Field Day message?  I copied it last year,
> when I just happened to tune across W1AW at the start of the bulletin
> and went ahead and copied the message using Notepad on the logging
> computer.  Hopefully somebody got us the 100-point bonus this year. If
> not, shame on us, as the message is transmitted multiple times in
> data, CW, and voice--take your pick.
>
> We still need to do some work on our antennas.  This years arrangement
> was a good layout and looked nice too.  We could have used better
> frequency agility in the antenna on the far end, maybe a properly
> designed 5-band Off-center Fed Dipole (OCFD) or a wire antenna fed
> with tuned feeders and a remote antenna tuner.   BTW, the so-called
> G5RV antenna is a pretty fair antenna, but is actually far from
> optimum.  The G5RV is fundamentally a 20-meter antenna that also
> works to an extent on some other bands, but it involves accepting some
> some amount of loss in doing so.  The loss is not so bad on 20, 40 &
> 80M, but pretty high on 15 and 10-meters and we make it worse with
> long coaxial feed lines.  There are better antenna designs that work
> well on multiple bands and we may want to add some new stuff to our
> antenna farm next time.
>
> BTW, I did a search on DXSCAPE to see if N4NRV appeared on the DX
> clusters and discovered that we were spotted on 80M CW!  Cool.  I also
> checked to see if there was any 160-meter activity during Field Day
> and saw that several stations were active.  I have an idea for a
> lowband vertical that would work on 40-meters and down that may net us
> a few 160M QSO's and maybe Alaska and Hawaii on 80M.  I really wanted
> a vertical on Sunday morning at dawn when I heard Hawaii on 80M very
> well, but he could not hear me.  :-(
>
> Projects and prospects for next year:  Better antennas?  Intercoms for
> all the stations to make logging and teaching and learning easier?
> Good non-butt-destroying seats? Another bandpass filter so we can
> operate a GOTA station and three other QRP stations capable of
> Phone/CW/Data as the New River Valley QRP Expeditionary Force and
> breaking through  the 10,000 point barrier in class 3A or 3B?   VHF or
> satellite operations with our new Moxon antennas?  Packet? Digital?
> What would the gentlefolk like to do?
>
> 73,
> Donnie, AB4I
> ______________________________**______________________________**__
> nrv-hams mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/**mailman/listinfo/nrv-hams<http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/nrv-hams>
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.**htm<http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm>
> Post: mailto:nrv-hams at mailman.qth.**net <nrv-hams at mailman.qth.net>
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>