[nrv-hams] N3AO: Thoughts on Field Day 2013 and Beyond

[Carter Craigie]

First of all, may I compliment Ben Williams KK4EWT on his efforts to make this a memorable Field Day (FD). Thank you, Mr. Ben! Starting to set up on Saturday morning went very well—a good idea!

Next, I sincerely apologize for bringing out an almost totally inadequate trap-dipole antenna. Since I had not been able to operate at all in 2012, due to serious lower back surgery the preceding month, and having a memory that hardly works at all—and, to tell the truth, was never very good—I had forgotten that the antenna I brought this year was the same one I had brought in 2011, and which had taken Frank WB1USN and me hours of adding lengths of wire all over it to bring it into resonance on 20, 40, and 80 meters. Who knows where all of those lengths of wire are now—or, more to the point, where they were the Saturday morning of FD!!! I am sad to say that the antenna was sadly out of resonance. Add to that I did not realize that the traps are only band specific, and that just because 15 meters is the third harmonic of 40 meters on a DIPOLE, it is certainly NOT for a TRAP dipole with a 40-meter set of traps!!! (My thanks to Bob N4HY for THAT lesson!) So that antenna sort of limped along at my rig’s station.

Following that, my/our old faithful Kenwood TS-440s transceiver, a veteran of MANY a FD, received RST reports of bad CHIRP at 11:30 Saturday morning, and it had to be replaced—after an hour-plus of trying this fix and that one. Of course, the out-of-resonance antenna didn’t help here either... (When I looked at the radio on the Monday after FD, I discovered a short loose wire in the finals stage, and, after reconnecting it, have gotten two on-air “NO CHIRP” reports. I will continue to look for other problems.)  Fortunately, I was able to use the cell phone and to catch Kay N3KN still at home around noon, and she was able to bring out my Elecraft K2-100 transceiver, and it did an adequate job, throughout. I was especially glad it did, near the end of our operating, when Bob N4HY, shouted out that “Life is too short for QRP!” and borrowed it to work the last of the 50 states with that extra 100 Watts on the end! Way to go, Bob!

I, myself, would have operated more, but my “innards” decided that this Field Day Weekend was THE PERFECT TIME to give me a case of “The Trots!” My pocket pedometer logged 8.5 miles over the weekend, most of that walking back and forth to the bathrooms! Oh, my...

I was impressed by all of the QRP CW operations, especially by Ted N9NB, Bob N4HY, and Donnie AB4I. What super, super operators—thanks, guys! But I feel that, for our club where MOST of the members are more comfortable with SSB, that restricting ourselves to 5-10 Watts is a not a good idea. Everybody who wants to operate should be given every chance for success, and 100 Watts is an added assurance of that success. I’m sorry if I seem to be anti-QRP. Generally I am not; but in this case, I want to think of the greater good—for the most people having a good time.

I would hope that, by next year, I will have been able to make an Off-Center-Fed (OCF) Wire Antenna, which would give a station good strong signals on ALL five bands, with no compromises. I shall turn my attention in that direction over the coming months.

I was so pleased that we had EXCELLENT WX CONDX. WOW! Wasn’t that great!!!

I had hoped to have lunch at around noon, since I wanted to start operating at 2:00 PM, the event start time, but since other folks seem to have liked having the lunch at 3:30 PM, I shall try to remember next year to bring along a sandwich for me to eat. I just cannot last that long into the afternoon. If my going to buy cheeseburgers was an offence to anyone, it was not intended to be so. I was just a “Starvin’ Marvin!” And I certainly ate lots of the club food later, including Kay’s yummy brownies, Danny’s hot hamburgers, and especially Wanda Wylam’s “to-die-for” pineapple upside-down cake—DELICIOUS!

I did not understand why the SSB operation did not start up right at 2:00 PM. I must have missed something in the planning. And wasn’t the GOTA station supposed to use a callsign separate from N4NRV, our club callsign? If the SSB station was supposed to be the GOTA station, shouldn’t we have been signing 2A instead of 3A? I suppose that most of the SSB operating happened in the evening and at night. By the way...just how DO you nighttime ops DO what you do?! I could never do what you do!!!

Something else to consider: Since so many members really enjoy the picnic part of the weekend, what if the picnic gang sat at one end of the building, while those interested in operating sat at the other? That way BOTH groups could have a good time, and each not bother the other?

It would also be good for the CW ops to copy the FD message. (Rick KS4XO and several of us tried to copy the SSB FD Message, but our pens couldn’t keep up with the spoken word!) An accurate copy of the message gets us 100 Bonus Points. And Doc Cunningham’s newspaper article earned us 100 points too! Thanks, Doc!

For me, one of the best parts of FD was the participation by the young people. I was well at home before the 14-year-old girl (with a General Class license, no less!!) operated with Sharon N1SMM’s grandchildren, Ethan and Evan. WOW! Did they rack up the points on SSB!!! Good going young people!

Finally, I was happy to be at FD at all this year. This last year has not been stress-free nor pain-free for me, and I still had to struggle a bit getting onto and up off of the picnic bench seats. But, for the most part I did OK, and I certainly appreciate all the help you other people gave to me, especially erecting and taking down my mast and antenna (such as the antenna was!) I certainly could not have done any of that, nor could I have unloaded or loaded back up all my stuff in my car. You guys and gals are a great group!

Thanks for a most memorable Field Day 2013!
73/88,
Carter N3AO