[Photo by Jeff NE4C]One could not have asked for better weather. An old standard is that ARRL Field Day is the fourth full weekend of rain in June. This year, that axiom proved false as there was not any rain in site the entire weekend. Of course, this being Florida, no rain at the tail end of June means heat —and it was HOT!
The three club banners on the big fire tower stairs [N2ESPhoto]
Antennas
Therefore, the antenna crew got an early start on Saturday June 22, raising the beam on the tall fire tower. The location was our now familiar Field Day site, the Clearwater Fire Training Center. The participants were members of the Clearwater ARS, the St. Petersburg ARC and the Upper Pinellas ARC.
The antenna crew raising the beam. [Photo by KN4LUZ]With the beam installed, next came the sloper, also installed from the tall tower. Rich AA2MF and crew installed a sloper, complete with auto-tuner, for all-band use.
Rick AA2MF working on a sloper remote tuner. [Photo by KN4LUZ]On the other fire tower, Rich and team also installed another sloper. You can see the tall tower with the beam in the background of the picture below.
Rolling out the coax on the smaller fire tower. [Photo by KN4LUZ]An off-center fed dipole completed the HF antenna array. With the outside work completed for antennas, the attention could be turned to the inside operating theater. Something we have learned is that while operating Field Day in tents and open-air pavilions has a certain nostalgic element, dealing with the heat and bug limits the number of participants. Therefore, to encourage participation of all club members, we setup the stations inside, making operating a bit more comfortable.
Radios
For the radios, we used two Elecraft K3 transceivers and a Kenwood TS590SG. One K3 was dedicated to CW and the other two radios were used on SSB and FT8. Computer logging was done with TR4W networked together sending data to the Raspberry Pi display on the big screen.
All three HF stations. Glenn N4ESU (foreground) and Lisa KC1YL at a SSB station, Tom W4CU (standing) and David KR4U at the CW station, Will W7WMS at the other SSB station (rear) [N2ESPhoto]Making lots of contacts [N2ESPhoto]David KR4U at the CW station and Tom NY4I trying to make the FT8 station work [N2ESPhoto].Kenny K4OB at the CW station and Tom NY4I at the SSB station (apparently FT8 will have to wait…) [N2ESPhoto]
Jack N4KIN (far left), Dave WA3VRE(hands in pockets), Glen N4GRC (blue shirt), Ron KP2N operating rear, Lisa KC1YL and Tom W4CU at CW station, Steve N4FOY at SSB station (front) [N2ESPhoto]Paul KC4YDY at the 6 meter station [N2ESPhoto].As usual, the team ate well. All meals are provided by group. Led by Dave KG4CNG’s pulled pork and Kevin manning the grill. Covered dishes provided by the attendees rounded out the feast.
Kevin (no call) manning the grill [N2ESPhoto]
Bonus Points
Part of Field Day is bonus points. We picked up quite a few of those. We had all emergency power, a sign-in table, Add lots of pictures.
Alan W4UB with Cathie Perkins, the Pinellas County Emergency Manager [N2ESPhoto]Jeff NE4C (left) and Ron W4RFA at the sign-in table [N2ESPhoto]Tom NY4I made use of his Icom 9700 and satellite beam to work W4MLB in south Florida on the CAS-4B satellite. Gerry WR6N was turning the antenna on that pass. This was the fifth attempt with Tom and Paul KA4IOX making attempts all throughout the early morning hours.
Icom 9700 for the satellite bonus [N2ESPhoto]Satellite antenna for satellite bonus [N2ESPhoto]
Pat AA0O conducting an education presentation on antennas analyzers [N2ESPhoto]
So how did we do?
The group made a similar number of contacts as last year. This year there were 1,077 QSOs with a just bit more than half in SSB contacts (611). Last year, we did 1171 QSOs. That difference is just about the number of 6m contacts last year due to better band conditions. So all in all, we made about the same number of QSOs. Bonus points were about the same too as we achieved our major goals of the W1AW bulletin, satellite contact and solar power contacts. This year we did NOT have an elected official but we did add an educational session thanks to Pat AA0O.
We had 28 hams making contacts this year as compared to 24 last year so participation continues to grow. We contest scoring stats can be found in our SH5 score analyzer here.
Our many thanks…
Events like this do NOT just happen. Field Day requires an immense amount of planning and thought. The Field Day planning committee met no fewer than 8 times on a conference bridge along with many other sessions such as the dry-run, coax cable installation and one-on-one phone calls. Alan W4UB, club president of UPARC, led the team this year with assistance from the following:
CARS: Jeff NE4C, Dave KG4CNG, Ron W4RFA
SPARC: Rich AA2MF, Pat AA0O, Lisa KC1YL and Tom NY4I
UPARC: Alan W4UB, Jason N4BOZ, Gerry WR6N, Glenn N4ESU, Ken WK4KM
While the members are listed from their respective clubs (although many of us belong to two or all three), it is important to know this is a joint effort and the greater group becomes paramount versus the individual clubs. Again, thanks to everyone that made this a success.
Hello. I have been a member of SPARC on and off since 1992. I am the current president of the club. Formerly I was the Vice President under Ron KP2N and a board member for several years. I was heavily involved in the club station working with Ron KP2N, Dave KR4U and John KI4UIP. I was also a contributor to the SPARC Remote station which was used by several SPARC members to either augment their own stations or provide a station to use for those in HOAs or other living arrangements that kept them off of HF. We had quite a few users of the remote utilizing the RemoteHams software. I hope to strike a balance in SPARC between fostering operating skills, teaching new people about ham radio and also offer a great social experience to members that may just come to the meetings for camaraderie. As a general-purpose club, I believe SPARC can cater to all those aspects of our wonderful hobby. I hope you join me along the way...
