Making a Late Update on Field Day 2021 here, we did our second ‘rona type Field Day with a small group actually onsite. The rest of the participation was from home stations. When we do this type of operation we minimize sharing and cooperative stations and each set up and operate our own gear. Interactions are outdoor and with separation.
I started with the IC-705, AH-705 tuner and a not so random wire chosen to avoid half wavelengths on ham bands, and four short radials for the Friday Evening bulletin copy. This wire is about 5/8 wavelengths on 20 meters which is usually our best band for the bulletin from W1AW. Copying the ARRL Bulletin on Friday is always one of our goals as this allows us to focus on operating during the Event Period on Saturday and Sunday. The West Coast bulletin station does not transmit on Friday so this means we have to copy Newington which can be a challenge here in California. We encourage multiple of our stations to try bulletin copy so everyone gets a chance, and we may get a copy on at least one station. I used a Raspberry Pi running FLDigi and was able to copy the bulletin on several digital modes. CW was recorded but with a message this long it is nice to get it on digital modes and not have to copy CW accurately for so long.
On Saturday I set up the Elecraft K3S (still waiting on my K4), and Frank N6OI set up his TH3JR suspended from the trees with lines over the trees which we put up with Pneumatic Antenna Launchers (www.AntennaLaunchers.com www.akbeng.com) as we usually do.
Mike, Cal and Oliver set up their stations on the ridge where we camp for Field Day and each operated their own setup. Oliver made a notable contact on 10 GHZ. We did use the GPS NTP Time Servers that we built after 2020 Field Day and had 2 servers on our wireless network feeding time into the logging software (www.FDLog.info).
Several stations set up at home and contributed their scores via the ARRL Field Day Log Entry site.
It was a good Field Day, and no one had any ‘rona issues afterward.
So what’s the next project? Time to start planning for Field Day 2022!
73 de Alan, w6akb
Organizing HSFDG FD since 1976…