How was your Field Day experience? First off, I hope you had one. Even with all the preparation, hard work of set up and tear down, it's still a fun and great experience. Being with some of your best friends for 24 hours, all doing the things you all love to do the most - priceless!
The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club had a very, very good Field Day. I don't know how our effort stacked up against previous years. I'm always a "glass half empty" guy in that regard, and then I'm usually pleasantly surprised when the results come out in December to find out that we did better than I had thought.
The weather was cooperative for the most part. The weather prognosticators were somewhere around the mark with their predictions. There was a very light sprinkle of rain at the beginning of set up, but that diminished very quickly and we were blessed with good weather almost until the very end.
As usual, set up went well. It seems that SPARC has this down to somewhat of a science. As the main part of the group gets the shelters ready and Ron N2LCZ gets the network of logging computers up and running, Dave KD2FSI and I get the antennas going.
I'm going to get a bit gushy here about Dave. He's a one man Field Day all by his lonesome. I don't know where SPARC would be without him. Between his antennas, the other equipment and the radios he brings ........... But that's not the end of it. His expertise and presence are above and beyond the "stuff" that he brings. We'd be lost without him.
The same goes for Marv K2VHW. He's the Founding President and President Emeritus of SPARC. He IS our spark. An Amateur Radio operator for over 50 years, a two time Emmy Winner for Technical Excellence in Broadcasting, untold experience in mobile communications testing, trouble shooting and repair ....... how did we get so lucky to get these guys in our group?
When the bell rang at 2:00 PM we were ready. We got going and over the next 24 hours we gave it our best. In addition to the activity behind the radios, we had a lot of visitors. In addition to curious walkers going by us (we are in a public park, after all), we had visits from some folks who specifically brought their kids by to see what Amateur Radio is all about. We also had visits from the Red Cross, and our new Hudson Division Director Nomar Vizcarrondo, NP4H, and our Division Public Information Officer, Ed Efchak WX2R came by during setup. We also got a visit from one of our Town Council members, Derryck White, who is also a CERT member and one of our biggest supporters from within our borough. He even helped us during tear down.
A peaceful Sunday morning scene.
The visit by our ARRL Officials, Nomar NP4H has the yellow lanyard around his neck and Ed is wearing the red ARRL shirt at the right. The banner came out exceptionally well. Thanks, Vistaprint! For the record, going from left to right - Marty WB2BEW, Neil WA2EGE, Tim AB2ZK (with the green CERT cap), Nomar NP4H, Bill W2AOF (SPARC Club President) Ron N2LCZ (IT Expert Extraordinaire), Marv K2VHW, Harry KC2PGX, Ed WX2R.
Dave KD2FSI, our "Indispensable Man" running VHF/UHF, FT8 and all things digital.
Marty WB2BEW with a Phil K2OTA, working SSB. Marty would later get a QSO in the log with France. 5 Watts from a KX3 to a multiband End Fed - not bad!
This is what I was looking at for the next 24 hours. The laptop is one of Ron's Lenovo WS530's.
Dave's MFJ-1982HP running in a roughly East to West direction. This was the SSB station antenna.
We always try to get a lot of signage up for our site, so that visitors can have their own sort of "walking tour" when we are super busy with other things.
More descriptive signage. Bill W2AOF our Club President got these from Vistaprint a few years ago when they were running a sale. They come in handy and let non-Hams know what they are looking at.
My MFJ-1982LP running in a roughly North-South direction. You can see one of the driveway reflectors that I purchased, holding up the near end, with the UNUN cable-tied near the top. The coax is running down to my KX3. We tie some caution tape to the wire itself as we park in the space off to the right and we don't want anyone walking into the wire. After this shot was taken, but before 2:00 PM, we put little orange cones down so that people would not traverse where we did not intend them to. The weird event of Field Day was that even with that, someone stole and walked off with the driveway reflector at the far end, while we weren't watching. Tim AB2ZK happened to need to go to his car for something and let me know that it was gone. We initially thought that maybe someone had driven into it or something like that, but it was totally gone with no trace (not even pieces) to be found. At least whoever took it, didn't damage the antenna - which performed flawlessly this year, after my soldering repairs to the UNUN. In fact, during the wee hours of the overnight, Marv K2VHW used it to worked New Zealand with our maximum output of 5 Watts.
I have video of that and will post that tomorrow. I wish that Bill W2AOF had been present for that QSO. He was tuckered from the heat and humidity of the day and left for home to get in some rest. However, he had traveled to New Zealand to visit some friends earlier this year. As someone who made that long flight from New Jersey to New Zealand, I think witnessing that QSO would have really brought home the wonder of Amateur Radio and QRP. We Hams are so used to what we do, that sometimes I think we take for granted how magical it all really is. When you experience that flight, the distance and the time and then you see a "measly" 5 Watts of power do that - for me at least, that is a super "Wow" moment.
Bob WB2UDC giving me a break at the CW station.
The new crescent Moon, coming close to it's set sometime very early Sunday morning.
First light is always a welcome sight.
It's amazing how bright it is so early in the morning. This was taken just a little after 5:00 AM.
The bands themselves were decent, but frustrating. QSB was like a roller coaster. A station would be 599 one second and 339 the next. The bulk of our CW QSOs were completed on 40 Meters, which I thought was in great shape. 80 Meters was decent at night, but there was a lot of static crashes to deal with. Since 20 Meters was the choice of the SSB guys, I only went there when they were taking a break. I could hear signals on 15 Meters the couple of times that I checked, but they were so low in strength that I could not make anything out. 10 Meters was completely dead the various times I twiddled the dial on that band.
Around 12:30 PM on Sunday, you could tell the weather was shifting. While most normal people woke to clear skies and a beautiful Sunday morning with blue skies, by lunchtime the sky had turned to that ominous lead gray color. With an hour and a half of Field Day operating time left, I convinced the crew to start tearing down. About halfway to three quarters of the way through, there were unnervingly close lightning strikes and the clouds literally burst open. We had to retreat to the safety of our vehicles. When the rain lessened up, we were able to finish the job and get the commonly owned Club "stuff" back to the CERT building.
I'll have a few more thoughts to put down for posterity tomorrow, when I post the short video that I took during the overnight. There's a thing or two more that I want to mention. My brain is a big bowl of oatmeal today. In the days when I wore a younger man's clothes, I was able to cope with an "up for 36 hours" stretch with a lot more ease and aplomb than I can now.
More thoughts about weather and equipment tomorrow - stay tuned!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Excellent - I enjoyed the pictures and write-up
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