Field Day 2016!

[N8YX]

Who's playing, what (and where) are you running, which bands?

I'm going to use my 101 twins on 10 and 15, and just dragged a TS-820S/R-820 set out of storage for use on 80-40-20...maybe 15 as well.

OldToob Skool FD is Best FD. There will be a few non-ham friends of mine participating here and at least one wants to become licensed. What better way to break them in to the hobby than with something which requires peak-n-load with every frequency excursion ... :snicker:...:rofl:

[W3WN]

I'll spend a little time at N3SH 2A again this year. (Hey TRAV! Located in South Park. You're invited! Well, so is everyone else, but you're probably the closest!)

Since there's a home baseball game Saturday night, and the Boss expects an escort, I'll probably be on the late shift again. If I make it.

W3WH broke an ankle a few weeks back, so he's going to operate FD 1D or 1E from home. I may come down and lend a hand.

Or I may just veg out and operate a casual 1D from home. We shall see.

[NQ6U]

Working/traveling that weekend. Gonna be up in Oaktown for a while, then a few other places in NorCal.

[W2NAP]

I doubt I will do anything.

[KD8TUT]

Well, I've usually done field day with my favorite club, The 220Mhz Guys and Gals out of Chicago. This year it seems too much to make the drive.

So there's a local club with field day ops about 8 miles south of me. I'll visit, make a donation, and eat their food.

Really do not enjoy contesting- but very much love field day. Last year a retired Northrup Grumman engineer who worked on the lunar lander chose my humble weak signal VHF station to hang out at. Picked his brain for 10 hours. Contacts be damned!

[KG4NEL]

I'll be helping people set up and break down, but probably won't be on the air much except for a few hours on Sunday.

W4EZ, 9A NC. Everything except Top Band (although we were crazy enough to do it one year...)

[WZ7U]

I guess I'm a class B this time. I'd go 1B battery but I don't want to have my battery crap out and not be able to use the pickup for power. Using a camping trip as an excuse to play radio this year. 6 meters in the mornings, 15/20 meters afternoons & 40/75 as appropriate the rest of the way around the clock. SSB mainly, CW if I work up the nerve but willing to do some slow speed if I get any takers (probably nothing but speed demons out there on FD). Just a few miles from my last 7qp effort in cn85, SE Clatsop county (NW Oregon) up an old logging road. Hope the housesitter doesn't tear it up too much. Was supposed to leave Wednesday but looks like Thursday at best.

Hope to work islanders on this outing but I'm betting my little pistol gets lost in the shuffle.

[KC2UGV]

Me and the youngest will be heading out to a NYS Forest to camp. While there, I plan on doing some 1B operating, digital on 20, 30, and 10; with a smattering of SSB voice. Of course, digital on 30 won't be "field day ops", but I like 30M.

Really, this is just an excuse to drag the station out to the campsite.

[W3WN]

A couple of us think it would be really fun, one Field Day, to camp out with a GelCell, decent QRP rig, some wire or lightweight antennas, and a solar panel for daytime power and recharging.

Nothing fancy.

Problem is that one of "us" is the club's Field Day chair, and another is the club's Contest coordinator. Normally, they'd be expected to be waiving the baton at FD. (Only the coordinator will be out of town at a family wedding, and the FD chair will be home with a busted ankle. So we shall see)

[KG4NEL]

A couple of us think it would be really fun, one Field Day, to camp out with a GelCell, decent QRP rig, some wire or lightweight antennas, and a solar panel for daytime power and recharging.

That's about what my HF station is going to be all the time, lol.

[KD8TUT]

As a side note, I think this year will be a little sad for me. I'm going to miss the guys and gals since they were so supportive as I was going through the exam stage of being a ham.

Yea- that's going to be a stinker.

[N8YX]

I may not get to do it this coming (2017) year but the year after I'm going to try to have an FT-817ND (or Yaesu's replacement for such), an LDG tuner, 9' whip and appropriate gel-cell or LiPo power aboard my bikepacking bike. Plan is to ride to a couple of primitive campsites along my favorite trail then activate each for a few hours apiece. Fitting everything needed into a pair of Topeak bike trunks (fore and aft) is going to be a bit challenging...

[KC2UGV]

I may not get to do it this coming (2017) year but the year after I'm going to try to have an FT-817ND (or Yaesu's replacement for such), an LDG tuner, 9' whip and appropriate gel-cell or LiPo power aboard my bikepacking bike. Plan is to ride to a couple of primitive campsites along my favorite trail then activate each for a few hours apiece. Fitting everything needed into a pair of Topeak bike trunks (fore and aft) is going to be a bit challenging...

I did that last year. Netted like 1000 points I think, just tooling around :)

[N8YX]

Listening to 28.400 with the Yaesu twins at the moment, hoping for Sporadic E. Meanwhile, on the 820 twins: 15 is as dead as a mausoleum, 20 isn't far behind it and 40 is "meh". This isn't shaping up to be one of the better years... :(

[WØTKX]

160, anyone? :spin:

I dunno if I will do a damn thing, but I could fiddle about.
Still at work. Been a loooong week of...

ShitGibbons. :mrgreen:

[KJ3N]

160, anyone? :spin:

Funny you should mention 160....

There's a FD operation not far from me that decided to put up a full-sized 160m at roughly 40 feet. Usually, they put up a tri-bander on an extension ladder and a couple of dipoles for the lower bands.

The result? No less than S9 noise in the radio on every single band. Oh, did I mention that this FD operation is literally in the shadow of a 5KW AM station on 1150 Khz? The antenna isn't more than 150 feet from the full-sized vertical antennas of the station. Not even an Elecraft K3 (which is what they were using) will tolerate that.

:doh: :doh:

[KC2UGV]

Field day lessons:

* Bring tools to fix things
* If you're doing solar + battery, camp in a sunny spot

Field day was a bust for me. Only 1 contact, and only 5 hours of operating before my battery died. Got about 1 hour of charging from my solar panel, but a lead pulled loose from the charge controller. Of course, no screwdriver on hand to fix it, so had to go with what I had stored. Not much, because we camped in a shaded area, and had to keep chasing the one spot of sun on the ground.

It was a little of a disappointment. Fortunately, this was a camping trip, that had some ham radio thrown in. I was, however, very disappointed to hear mostly 1A's, 2A's and class D's... Didn't seem like too many were making much of a "Field" of Field Day.

[KJ3N]

Field day lessons:

* Bring tools to fix things

:doh:


* If you're doing solar + battery, camp in a sunny spot

:doh: :doh:


Field day was a bust for me. Only 1 contact, and only 5 hours of operating before my battery died. Got about 1 hour of charging from my solar panel, but a lead pulled loose from the charge controller. Of course, no screwdriver on hand to fix it, so had to go with what I had stored. Not much, because we camped in a shaded area, and had to keep chasing the one spot of sun on the ground.

http://www.diamondsindasky.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BMNG2h4CQAI2dtY.jpg


It was a little of a disappointment. Fortunately, this was a camping trip, that had some ham radio thrown in. I was, however, very disappointed to hear mostly 1A's, 2A's and class D's... Didn't seem like too many were making much of a "Field" of Field Day.

Portable antenna, low power, and conditions that were basically in the shitter. 10m was dead, 15m was bare minimum (I might have heard 6 stations over the 2 days), and 20m didn't seem to have any truly strong signals. 40m was horrendously noisy here and of course 75m wasn't any better.

I made a little over 30 contacts with the home antennas and the IC-703, operating 1E. Final tally for roughly 6 hours spent operating:

15m: 2
20m: 11
40m: 4
80m: 17
160m: 1

[KC2UGV]

:doh:



:doh: :doh:



http://www.diamondsindasky.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BMNG2h4CQAI2dtY.jpg




Yes, I did lololol It was a bust due to all poor decisions on my part, really, and I make no bones about it either...



Portable antenna, low power, and conditions that were basically in the shitter. 10m was dead, 15m was bare minimum (I might have heard 6 stations over the 2 days), and 20m didn't seem to have any truly strong signals. 40m was horrendously noisy here and of course 75m wasn't any better.


Ok, I didn't realize the bands were crappy... And I thought it might have been just me.



I made a little over 30 contacts with the home antennas and the IC-703, operating 1E. Final tally for roughly 6 hours spent operating:

15m: 2
20m: 11
40m: 4
80m: 17
160m: 1

Wow... Now I know it wasn't just me...

[KJ3N]

Ok, I didn't realize the bands were crappy... And I thought it might have been just me.

It still might have been partly you, but probably not as much as you think. To give a bit of perspective, here are my totals doing the exact same setup in 2013:

15m: 8
20m: 20
40m: 19
80m: 2

On 20m, I got as far as CA, AZ, and KH6. On 15m, I got into CA 3 times. I only spent about 4.5 hours operating in 2013.

Keep an eye on when the FD article is published in QST. I think you'll find a lot of complaints about the bands.

[w2amr]

I handed out some points using my backyard station. 75, 40, 20, & 6 meters.

[N8YX]

Keep an eye on when the FD article is published in QST. I think you'll find a lot of complaints about the bands.

And


I handed out some points using my backyard station. 75, 40, 20, & 6 meters.

I managed about half a logbook page on 40M over several hours of "light" operating (read: socializing in the shack with my Ops Crue took precedence). Had the 10M setup all ready to go for a friend who's wanting to get into ham radio...and that band was as dead as a mausoleum at midnight all day Saturday. Sunday morning saw a brief Es event open to the LA/MS area but enthusiasm had waned to the "fuggit" point by then.

[WZ7U]

I guess I'm a class B this time. I'd go 1B battery but I don't want to have my battery crap out and not be able to use the pickup for power. Using a camping trip as an excuse to play radio this year. 6 meters in the mornings, 15/20 meters afternoons & 40/75 as appropriate the rest of the way around the clock. SSB mainly, CW if I work up the nerve but willing to do some slow speed if I get any takers (probably nothing but speed demons out there on FD). Just a few miles from my last 7qp effort in cn85, SE Clatsop county (NW Oregon) up an old logging road. Hope the housesitter doesn't tear it up too much. Was supposed to leave Wednesday but looks like Thursday at best.

Hope to work islanders on this outing but I'm betting my little pistol gets lost in the shuffle.

Got burnt this year. Murphy put the hurt on the effort in spades. Never got OTA till the day after FD but did get to play the next 9 days through the remnants of the horrible propagation. 20 proved fun last weekend with the 13 colonies thing going on. Was able to QSO with an old friend down near L.A. for a few days in a row which was a nice consolation prize. Also proved the 6m delta loop can at least hear, so maybe it does work after all.

Effin FD anyway. Seems to always get me somehow. I did work CN85ht from a wonderful spot though; not to mention a much overdue and much more needed camping trip with my most excellent yl and the canine contingent. Sorry to have to return, really.

[KC2UGV]

Got burnt this year. Murphy put the hurt on the effort in spades. Never got OTA till the day after FD but did get to play the next 9 days through the remnants of the horrible propagation. 20 proved fun last weekend with the 13 colonies thing going on. Was able to QSO with an old friend down near L.A. for a few days in a row which was a nice consolation prize. Also proved the 6m delta loop can at least hear, so maybe it does work after all.

Effin FD anyway. Seems to always get me somehow. I did work CN85ht from a wonderful spot though; not to mention a much overdue and much more needed camping trip with my most excellent yl and the canine contingent. Sorry to have to return, really.

This was my FD, essentially, as well. Down to the camping, but no canine on this trip, as she's gotten far too old, and tends to want to sleep a lot. She can't get more than 1/4 mile down the trail these days, and I'm carrying her back. Not an easy feat with a 90lb dog lol