continued from part I…
I went home, which is only 15 minutes away from the Field Day site, and got about four hours of sleep. I got back to the site about 3:45 am. Arun, W8ARU was turning and burning on the CW station, so I caught a few more ZZZZs while waiting for him to turn the station over to me. I got on about 5 am (see below).
I was surprised that the band was still so active, and even though Arun complained about not being able to find stations that we hadn’t worked already, I was able to find some. And, when I set up on a frequency and started calling CQ, I found plenty of activity. At one point, I got the rate up to over 90 Qs per hour—for a short time anyway.
I don’t know how many contacts that I made, but I think that I acquitted myself pretty well before handing the controls over to Tim, KT8K sometime between 6:30 am and 7:00 am. I got back on a little later, relieving Tim for a while, and even then was able to find stations to work. I think that because the band conditions were so good, that there were more stations on and we could hear more of them, so that we just continued to find stations that weren’t dupes.
After breakfast, we set up the GOTA station again. The first operator of the morning was Aaron, KD8QQA. Aaron turned into the GOTA star for 2017. Over the course of the next hour or so, he made 20 contacts, qualifying for the GOTA bonus points! Aaron would make a few more contacts for us later in the day, when I twisted his arm a little to help us get over 2,000 contacts.
The rest of the day was devoted to racking up points. Sometime around 10:00 am, we surpassed our 2016 QSO total of 1,650. About 1:30 pm, only a half hour before the end of the event, we’d made it to about 1,950. At that point, I went around to all of the stations to urge them on. We hit 2,000 right about 1:50 pm, and our final total was 2,024! What a great effort.
The last two GOTA contacts were made by Ruth Tabeling, W8AWT’s mother. We got her into the operator’s chair about 1:50 pm, and we managed to make two Qs before shutting down. She was operator #11.
Teardown went pretty fast as usual, and by 3:30 pm, I was all packed up and ready to go. Another Field Day was in the books.
Even before I left the site, I was thinking about next year. For example, even though my 20m/40m fan dipole has worked so well over the years, we might want to try non-resonant doublet with an antenna tuner to allow us to work more bands.
I also think that we want to try to have two CW stations, as we have in the past. The club wants me to teach a CW class, and I think that I’ll make it a goal that all of the students will be able to operate a CW station at next year’s Field Day.
Attribution for the 2nd photo above, please. :-)
We’ve always put up two CW antennas, since they were originally designed for a 4A effort (2 CW, 2 SSB stations). In the past, we were short of CW operators to keep two CW stations going full-time. I noticed this year, though, that we seemed to have a slight surplus of CW operators, so maybe it’s time, especially if you churn out some more CW ops with your class.
Then the challenge will be another rig and shelter. We were essentially short a shelter this year, and the folks in the tent got cold early in the morning, since it had no heat. We were blessed with mild weather, so the tent did OK in the sun without overheating, which can be miserable in the typical SE Michigan humid summer weather.
I’m under the impression that there are some more folks in the club that have trailers. We just need to flush them out. And the transceivers in the about $1500 range are getting pretty good. Both the TS-590S and the IC-7300 accounted well in the usually nasty Field Day RF-filled environment. Folks with TS-590’s (especially the 590SG) and IC-7300’s should be encouraged to volunteer them next year, along with the usual K3’s.
Oppps. Sorry about that.
We’ve operated in tents before, so while they may not be as comfortable, they’ll do the job.
The IC-7300 worked really well. We could hear the CW station and the SSB station when we were on the same band, but it certainly wasn’t a deal breaker. We could still make contacts. I was very impressed with the IC-7300.
Nice to meet you on CW, Dan, and what a fantastic effort this FD. Nice work (and fun?). I setup with my long wire running 1B from AL and made 332, my best ever. Hope to hear you again on the air. 73, Dennis WU6X/4
I LOVE homebrew gear, and here is some very fine gear being used on FD….Enjoy…
http://no3m.net/
Fantastic write-up, Dan! I got to operate some SSB but there were lots of people who also wanted to operate. Had a great time, catch up with you guys next week.