High Sierra Field Day Group

The new LED flashlights have come a long way. At Pacificon Frank found a very bright and very small LED flashlight. Using a CREE XR-E 3 Watt LED, it puts out about 160 lumens, amazing for a 7/8 by 3″ light. This is far more than a 3D Maglite, and is about double the light from last year’s 3W Luxeon LEDs, so this is a significant increase. These particular flashlights are available from LedWholesalers.com, but there are many similar products on eBay and elsewhere. There are many models that have different features. One good source of flashlight information is Candlepower Forums.

Our New web page on LED Flashlights

Pacificon was excellent, and we saw quite a few FD Group folks there including Frank, Dawn, Chris, Mike C, Eric, Glenn, Ken, Oliver, Cal, Bob I, and probably more that I’m not recalling right now. We took some photos and we’ll set up an album for them on the gallery here shortly.

The Pacificon Antenna Forum on Friday was excellent as usual, and I encourage folks who are interested in antennas to attend that forum if they can.

We do have a new photo gallery here on the website, and encourage group members to post photos of group outings and other interesting stuff. Contact AlanB for getting set up to post.

The Pacificon HFPack forum went well, with Ken’s organization and help from Bill, Oliver, Eric and others. The gathering the park Sunday afternoon was met with wonderful weather and some good propagation for a few HFPack contacts.

Field Day is long over, and we are preparing for CQP and Pacificon. This year’s FD was a bit different, Cal brought his station and beam, and Alan put his KW station in the trailer. Mike set up the big wire antenna again and tuned it differently. Brad’s balloon popped way too soon. Bob brought his motorhome and set up VHF in there.

I just put some photos up in the new Gallery. See Link on the lower right.

Field Day is only two weeks away. It is time to check those lists, twice, and prepare.

• Review the Field Day Handbook
• Make any last minute procurements
• Change the Generator oil and test it
• Charge and test the batteries
• Make sure the tent poles and stakes are with the tent
• Inventory the cables and don’t forget the Microphone and Key
• Get the maps and GPS ready
• Find the Instruction Manuals and pack them

See you there!!

The FD Planning went well, see the notes in the wiki (in the members only area). Plans for FD 2007 are shaping up nicely. Discussion is in a private Google discussion list this year.

A page has been added to the wiki with links to other FD group web pages that have useful information to review. There is an FD Primer, and other FD planning documents.

MikeF is going to make another site survey looking for an improved site.

Welcome back to our corner of the internet. Lots of things have been happening. We had a great fall campout. We are starting to think about Field Day, and the next campout.

The all-important question is, where do we go this year for Field Day? Should we go to the 2006 site again, or try to go back to an earlier site.

We also need to schedule the Field Day meeting. Frank offered his place at one point, so we’ll see if he still wants to do it and what weekends would be available.

Enter the wiki for more details!!