Since several of our members were reluctant to gather en masse, we decided not to hold our usual big Field Day this year. So, a couple of weeks ago, I got the bright idea to hold a much smaller operation. I called it “Field Day on the Fly” because, unsure of how many would turn out, I didn’t want to put a lot of effort into planning it. My idea was to have one, maybe two, stations and just have some fun being outside and getting together.
Let me just say that now I know why planning—even for a small operation—is a good idea. My initial plan was to just hold a small gathering in a park near my house. This worked out pretty well for an evening meeting our club held recently, but when the forecast called for rain all weekend (which never did materialize), we decided we needed an alternate location. Fortunately, one materialized in the nick of time, but if I ever do it again, I’m certainly going to have a Plan B for weather.
I had no set plans for the number of stations that we would run, and that was another mistake. The reason, of course, is that, without planning, you end up with stations interfering with one another. We ended up with three stations, and you guessed it, even with contest filters, we experienced quite a bit of inter-station interference.
In total, we had nine hams show up. The star of the show, IMHO, though, was nine-year-old Matthew. Several weeks ago, I got an email from his mother, Suzanne. She said that Matthew had become interested in radio and asked if we might be able to help him choose some kind of radio and perhaps get his license. Last weekend, I met Matthew and his father at the Monroe Hamfest and sold him a SW receiver. I also mentioned that we’d be doing Field Day the next weekend.
Unfortunately, his father was out of town this weekend, but his mother brought Matthew and his older brother and younger sister to our Field Day site about 11:00 am. We were just getting the antennas set up, so I got them to help us set up. Then, once I got my 40m/20m inverted vee up, I invited them all into the “shack.”
I hooked up my KX-3 and quickly made a CW contact. Thinking that Matthew might be a little more impressed with phone, I tuned up to around 7200 kHz. Even though the KX-3 only runs 15 W, Matthew and I were able to complete a couple of phone contacts, so that was very cool. Matthew said that he’d be listening once FD operations got under way in earnest after 2pm. I’m certainly going to keep in touch with both Matthew and his dad and encourage them to get licenses.
Having said that, one thing I was struck by is that it seemed as though there were fewer stations on the air than in years past. I wasn’t the only one at our operation that mentioned that either. Instead of the usual wall-to-wall operators, there were were many open spots on 40 meters and 20 meters. Did it seem that way to you, or am I just imagining things?
Don says
Dan, I only operated sporadically during the weekend as 1D, but it did seem activity was down. Until I went to 20M FT-8, that is. Wall-to-wall signals!
Conditions in my area were not great but I heard the same “holes” on 20 and 40 SSB and CW–usually the “money bands”–as you did. Not a lot of CW activity at all. 6 meters was open to New England and the upper Midwest from here but once I worked everyone I could hear, I only made a dozen or so contacts. on SSB and three or four on CW. Again, FT-8 on 6 had more signals.
Are we seeing a revolution in ham radio? Maybe.
73,
Don N4KC
http://www.n4kc.com
http://www.donkeith.com