This weekend, was without a doubt one of the best Field Days I’ve had the pleasure of particpating in. Except for the loss of a flashlight, everything went off without a hitch.
My Field Day got started at 8am Saturday morning at Mark’s Midtown Coney Island. (I feel a little bad about not getting out to the Field Day site on Friday evening to put up the antenna masts, but only a little.) A bunch of us gather there to fuel up for the event. This year, ten of us ate at Mark’s.
Soon after I got there, Garry, W8GMD, approached me and handed me the laser-engraved nametag shown at right. How cool is that?
The antenna masts for the CW station and the two SSB stations were already up, so about the only thing that we needed to do was to set up the GOTA station. As we have for probably at least the last five years, we used my 20m/40m fan dipole, mounted in an inverted vee configuration, using my set of surplus fiberglass masts. This setup has worked very well over the past five years, in many different locations, and this year was no exception.
The antenna went up quickly, and this year, once it was up, we didn’t have to lower it for any reason. I guess that we’re finally getting the hang of it. I had purchased a new folding table and brought along some folding chairs, and that was all set up in no time as well. That left us some time to help set up the food tent and do some other miscellaneous chores. This was all aided by the simply perfect weather that we had that morning (and throughout the rest of Field Day).
About 10:30 am, I retrieved the radio that we were going to use in the GOTA tent—an IC-7300!—and got that set up. As soon as the generators were fired up, shortly before 11:00am, we were ready to get on the air.
As I did last year, I had a blast making pre-Field Day contacts with other stations who were also testing their rigs. This little activity is actually an important one. It helped me learn how to operate the IC-7300—an important thing for the GOTA coach to know—and it gave me an idea of the propagation conditions. I was happy to note that propagation seemed really good, at least on 40m.
Speaking about the GOTA station, we ended up with 72 contacts made by 11 different operators. Our start operator this year was Aaron, who tallied about 25 contacts. The rest were all stars in my book, though, including my wife, Silvia; her sister, Lucy; Michelle, KE8GZF; Garry, W8GMD; and Ian, age 12, who made four or five contacts before he had to leave (see below).
At 1800Z, all of our stations were up and running. We ran 3A again this year, including one CW station and two SSB stations.
The “hyoooj” improvement that we made in our operation this year was the food. I don’t know how they did it, but our club officers convinced Tom, W8TAM, and Julie, K8VOX (of MSPOTA fame) to turn and burn on dinner rather than 20m phone.
We had a real feast. On the menu was pulled pork, jerk chicken, baked beans, potato salad, and other assorted delicacies. Someone baked some cookies, and someone else bought a cheesecake. Everything was incredibly good.
After dinner, I convinced Michelle, KE8GZF, to take another turn at the GOTA station, but after making a couple more contacts, both she and I had had enough. We called it quits, and I went home before returning very early on Sunday morning.
Thom w8tam says
Thanks Dan! There was a backroom deal cut for BBQ. ;) What a great field day. After I got done cooking I operated the overnight shift on 20m and 40m. Many contacts were made, and lots of sleep was missed. For sure the band conditions and weather really smiled on us this field day!