Ham Radio and the great outdoors...what a blast!  ARRL Field Day is always the largest on-air activity in ham radio and this year was no exception.  With more than 60 volunteers and visitors, the Fox River Radio League Field Day event at Johnson's Mound was packed with fun.  We operated as 8A, which means we had 8 stations on the air at the same time, plus 2 bonus stations...40 SSB, 40 CW, 40 PSK, 20 SSB, 20 CW, 20 PSK, 80/15 SSB, 80/15 CW, VHF, and GOTA (Get On The Air).  Planning began in January, volunteers started signing up in March and by Friday at 1pm of Field Day weekend, we were ready to set up and go.

 

This year we had a giant collinear string of dipoles set up for the three CW stations to operate.  This set of dipoles, strung end to end, measured a couple hundred feet long, and once strung up between 30' tippers was most impressive.  20 SSB featured a spider beam, 20 PSK had a MOXON beam, and the VHF station was a combination of beams and a vertical for 6 meters, 2 meters and 440 MHz.  The rest of the stations were a combination of dipoles and verticals.

 

We began setup on Friday at 1pm and had most tents, antennas and equipment set up by 8pm.  We were back at it around 7am on Saturday and by 11am we were ready for an RFI check.  At noon we stopped for lunch, and then the contest began at 1pm.  The afternoon was hot, and so was the on-air activity, as we were on our way to surpassing last year's score by almost 30% and putting up our highest score in 8 years!

 

At 6pm we stopped for dinner.  A special thank you to Becky KB9UBU and her crew who did a fantastic job again with a delicious feast of hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, turkey, sides and treats!  Dinner at Field Day always doubles as a kind of club summer dinner and everyone had a great time.  After dinner, we were treated to a fun show from Mother Nature as dark clouds rolled in and high winds picked up.  We pulled down the giant collinear dipole arrangement to avoid the high winds and monitored weather updates from Cyd N9CV and the Kane County ARES crew.  When the winds calmed down, we put back up the dipoles and the CW stations got back to pounding brass.

 

As the sun set, operators did their best to work Grayline propagation and the overnight crews went to work.  By morning, many Band Captains knew they were on their way to beating last year's performance.  With a break for a quick continental breakfast, operators worked right up until the 1pm cutoff on Sunday.  Again, we had several willing volunteers who helped with tear down and by 3pm we were ready to pack the final truck load of equipment and move out.

 

Is Field Day a contest?  Is Field Day a test emergency operation?  The answer is easy...Field Day is what you make it.  Some club members are operating remotely on their own throughout the year and enjoy setting up a station and operating under bare-bones conditions.  Other club members love radio sport and crave the excitement of pilling on Q's.  Either way, Field Day is fun for everyone with plenty to learn.

 

The ARRL always publishes national results for Field Day in the December issue of QST.  Here is a breakout of our club's scoring. SSB contacts count for 1 point each.  CW and PSK contacts count for 2 points each...

 

	Contacts	CW	Digital	SSB	Points
20 SSB	336			336	336
20 PSK	152		152		304
20 CW	414	414			828
40 SSB	594			594	594
40 PSK	134		134		268
40 CW	224	224			448
80/15 SSB	294			294	294
80/15 CW	421	421			842
VHF	79	9		70	88
GOTA	187	44		143	231
	2,835				4,233
				Power Multiplier	2
				Total Points	8,466

Bonus Points
    800 100% Emergency Power
    100 Media Publicity
    100 Set-up in Public Place
    100 Information Booth
    100 W1AW Field Day Message
    100 Natural Power QSOs completed
    100 Site Visited by invited served agency official
    100 Youth Participation
    120 GOTA Bonus
      50 Submitted via the Website
 1,670 Total Bonus Points

10,136 Total Points for Field Day 2009

 

73 de Eric, AB9OS

2009 Field Day Chairman