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

[Robert Schubert]

Hi Carter,

What a great event! I enjoyed your comments and synopsis. I'm indebted to
you for your invitation to come have a look at the NRV Amateur Radio Club
during Filed Day.  A great group of individuals to be associated with!  As
a matter of fact, I've got a membership application form sitting in front
of me ready to send off.

I took a few photos of the event to share. They can be found at
https://picasaweb.google.com/101266113525689928088/FieldDay2013NewRiverValleyAmateurRadioClub?authkey=Gv1sRgCLzIzIjJmJGBPw
Some nice photos of you with Ethan and Evan.

Best and 73,

Bob KC4FNE


On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Carter Craigie <carter128 at verizon.net>wrote:

>      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
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Bob Schubert
Associate Dean for Research
College of Architecture and Urban Studies
202 Cowgill Hall
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0205
540-231-5607
silver at vt.edu