12-08-1986 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chesapeake," a [cut and it huge !cad -acid hatioy f6r do power. Norm. N4NGV, came through with some really fine antennas. I supplied a makeshift operating table. Jim, N41•ZA, Dave, my Iwo sons and 1 went out Friday evening and strung some antennas. Saturday was a disaster! We were wiped out by thunderstorms until late in the evening. After getting zapped several times by lightning while trying to connect antennas, I decided to dis- connect everything. later that night, Norm came and salvaged what was left of the day by making a few contacts while I logged with a splitting headache. Every now and then we would have to dump the water off the canopy to keep it from drowning us. After a couple of hours, we decided to quit for the night. My two small sores (ages 6 and 9) had been wanting to go "camping" for some time. That night, in a tent full of mosquitoes, was "real fun"1 1 spent until 3 AM swatting the bugs. Meanwhile, everyone but my sons and 1 had left. Around 8 AM Sunday, as Dave and Norm began to get things going again, I ran my sons home and took a break. Norm had returned with a much needed ground rod on the second trip. The huge battery held out stupendously. It never indicated any fatigue, according to the voltmeter used to monitor its output. When I returned from home, Dave and Norm had things in good shape. The weather turned out to be fantastic, and things finally got rolling! We got somewhere between five and six good hours of operating a real Field Day. I did most of the lugging, while Dave did most of the phone operating. Norm occasionally relieved Dave at the operating position and managed to experi- ment with a couple of different antennas. All said and done, Sunday turned out to be a magnificent dayl We learned what to do and what not to do next year. Thank youl N/DJS, 3A Our plan for this activity was to begin setup at 0800local and go on the air at 1300 local and operate for 24 hours. However, 15 minutes prior to the station opening, there was a 2-car head- on collision. Immediately, members of our group activated a local two -meter autopatch and contacted the police. We had police and an aid vehicle on site within five minutes of the oc- currence of the accident. In addition, members of our group provided radio -assisted traffic control for over an hour before the local authorities could take over. This was a major accident, which incurred three fatalities. There would have undoubtedly been secondary ac- cidents had we not provided the assistance we did. The bottom line this year is that we all learned a lot, and once again proved the ef- fectiveness of short -and long-range Amateur Radio communications. "N. SA The Carver/Scott ARES and HTCSCARS begat setup at 9 AM on June 28, at Carver Park Reserve, 15 miles west of Minneapolis and St Paul. The sky didn't look very promising, as it was cloudy and looked like rain could begin at any time. By 10:30, however, we noticed [hat it had suddenly cleared u, sad looked like it was going to be a perfect day. We were to be class SA again this year, but this year we had decided to use more wire antenruts. This shortened the antenna and tower erection process considerably. A tribander for 10, it and 20 wa. installed on a 35-foot lower The remankler o ,ne antennas were various wire Andy, KA3PGJ, at the Novice station of the Mid -Atlantic ARC, W3SC. arrays and configurations we thought we would experiment with. Sonic interesting results were observed on 40-meter CW with a full -wave loop and on 80/75 meters with an end -fed random wire. For power, we had a 3-kW diesel generator feeding three of the stations, with two gas - powered generators for the other stations. The VHF packet station was also run off the big generator (we made 11 contacts). It was a great Field Day, with lots of interesting spectators looking on and asking questions. Amateur Radio also get a big boost in the arm from a local newspaper that did a front-page article on our operation. We are already making plans for next year! KTfR, 4A Approximately 60 members of the Scottsdale ARC and their families attended this year's Field Day. The weather was near perfect at the 6800-foot site near the town of Strawberry, Arizona on the Mongollon Rim. Temperatures ranged from a warm 85 degrees in the daytime to the low 40s at night. We even had a momentary sprinkle of rain early Sunday morning. All stations were spaced around the periphery of an 800-foot circle clearing with tall pines around the edge and a natural 30- to 40-foot depression in the center where the two gasoline generators were located. This resulted in almost inaudible engine noise ... Yes, it was a super sue! Thanks for the unexpected opportunity for additional bonus poin- '',%r 12-metcr contacts. The band opened up for lust long enough for us to garner the required QSOsl W^FH1, 4A 1 ield Day has come and gone for another year, and I'll have to say Vin sorry that it's all over. Our club is rather small and it always seems that we have a hard time getting enough people that are interested in coming along on this most important weekend. Neverthelc,,, we did manage to have an exceptional outing this year. As always, things don't always work as planned. Brian, KA7SSIl, slx nt must tit dos year restoring a World War II vintage 5 kW generator for use, only to trailer it up to the FD site and have it refuse to start. After six hours of cranking, and with help from W71`111 and K7ZUR, it was running. It was a good thing the club brought along their own 2.4-kW unit. W7JHS and K71AW were on 75 phone and 40 CW running off battery power while the generator work was going on. All looked good, so I started the 40-m phone and 2-m packet stations around 0100 UTC. We only managed one packet contact over the entire event. At 0500 UTC, disaster struck. On a routine check of the generator, it was discovered that the radiator was leaking! We had no choice but to shut the generator down and use our two backup generators. All in all, we were quite pleased with the club's performance. We improved out score by almost 500 points from past years. KS3L, 3A Battery This was the first attempt by the Baltimore Amateur Radio Television Society to run a QRP Field Day. The site chosen was on the end of a high ridge in the McKeldin area of the Patapsco State Park in Maryland. Three screen tents were set up with a TS-130 in each, throttled back to 5 W output and run on batteries. All antennas were dipoles or inverted Vs; the lowest of which was the driven element off an old tribander, which was suspended from ropes about 65 feet up. The highest antenna was a dipole for 40 meters, the ends of which were at about 100 feet. T'te park had some tall treesl As a result of our press release, we were visited by a photographer from WBAL-TV Saturday afternoon. If he had arrived about 15 minutes later, we would have probably received better coverage. Just after the photographer left, a rather upset mother drove down to the site and asked if we had seen three lost children. For- tunately, all six of us were equipped with 2-meter hand-helds and an immediate search party was formed. One ham went back to the mother's camp site, another stayed on top of the ridge to act as net control, while the remaining four of us began searching in different directions down the sires of the ridge. After a Shen time, the children were located trying to find their way back to the camp site. The search party was then disbanded. Since I have been in FD operations for the past 18 years, the logs were given to me to double- check and redupe. In almost 15 years of serious contesting, this was the first time 1 had to dupe almost 20W contacts. Phewl Our club is primarily a VHF club, and in 18 years of Field Day operations, I have never seen so much cooperation and a desire to do it right by a group of 37 hardworking people. W6SKQ, 3A Balle4 The -Zuni Loop Mountain Expeditionary Fora is a group of hams who are all QRP enthusiasts. We met on the QRP ARCI Western States Net and have become friends over the years on the air. This year was our second attempt at Field Day. What makes it a unique group effort is that none of us lives less than 40 miles from any other. Our planning is done on the air and through the mail. Our FD location is a public campgr. dnd in the San Gabriel Mountains about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, at an elevation of 7300 feet.: he various loops inside this campground are ruined for Indian tribes, hence our name. At this 74 Osl.