Field Day is this weekend, and it’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to bring to Field Day. My philosophy is to bring just about anything that I think might be useful. As I am the GOTA station captain, my list might be a little longer than yours, but perhaps not. You can never be too prepared for Field Day.
I plan to bring:
- HF transceiver. The GOTA station is supposed to use an HF transceiver owned by the club, but what happens if that radio doesn’t work?
- Power supply. Ditto.
- Antenna mast and 40/20m fan dipole. This includes 100-ft. of RG-8X coax.
- Tent for the GOTA station, including a table, power strip, and chairs for the operator and coach.
- Cheat sheet for the GOTA station operators and coaches. This is a simple 8.5 x 11 in. card with the station name in phonetics, and the exchange, so that the operator only has to read it off the card.
- Several copies of my “Getting into Amateur Radio flyers.”
- Tool box, including screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, etc.
- Soldering iron. I’m going to take the ISO-Tip battery-powered soldering iron the company sent me a couple of months ago.
- Test equipment: DMM, antenna analyzer.
- Antenna box. This box contains all of the miscellaneous parts I might need to build an antenna.
- Headphones, paddle and keyer for when I’m the CW station operator.
- Sleeping bag and toiletry kit, in case I decide to sleep over at the site.
- Thermos of coffee. I’m a caffeine addict, and the cook may not make coffee when I want it.
I’ll add items to this list as I think of it, or as readers remind me of items that I should bring. What did I forget?
Dave, N8SBE says
Heh. A spare tent for when the one you brought out is blown down and destroyed?
Fortunately, we hadn’t put any thing in it before Mother Nature took her vengeance out on our Field Day site late Friday night, after we had set up the antennas and shelters.
Aside from the loss of the GOTA and Information Table tents, and a mast that had to be re-raised on Saturday in the driving rain, and a power amplifier that crapped out in my K3 (meaning that we made a large percentage of CW contacts running 10W), we managed to put over 1300 contacts in the log for a 3A (no GOTA, no VHF) operation, and from most accounts, everyone had fun.
Wet/tired, but fun, nevertheless.
Dave, N8SBE says
Upon investigation, my K3 is suffering from the dreaded ERR 12V, which in this case, is due to the early production run using tin-plated instead of gold-plated Berg pins on the RF board to mate to the 100W module. The upshot is that the six pins that carry the brunt of the power amplifier module current are discolored and oxidized from the high current, and must be replaced, as well as the mating connector, which was damaged by the oxidation. Elecraft has a parts mod kit that has been available for some time to fix this problem, but I had never bothered, since I had not had any symptoms up until now.
It will require major dis-assembly to allow access to both sides of the RF board, to remove the offending pins, once the replacement parts arrive. In the meantime, I can operate the rig at 10W without the 100W module installed.