2008 Field Day: Outstanding in someone's Field
What a Field Day!
Rather than operate with my home club, my wife and I went on a Field Day road trip. Our goal? Visit as many Field Day sites as possible during the weekend (and keep our sanity/marriage intact!).
The locations on the map are lettered, so you can follow along at home.
A/J. Cox's Creek was where the road trip began, and its marked with a “J” since it was also the final destination point.
B. We started out about 10:30 with a visit to our home club, the Kentucky Amateur Radio Society. The club setup this year at the EM “barn” (the former Pic N Pay shoe store that now a county-owned building used to store the county's Emergency Management rolling stock). Admittedly I wasn't sure what sort of FD operation they would have since they were going to have an ARES -style Field Day. The reports I received were that they had a nice event, with lots of visitors. Locating across from McDonald's doesn't hurt!
C. Wilderness Road ARC Field Day at RR Donnelly Park. This club has the ideal FD setup: A 40×69 block building with 16-foot overhead doors on all four walls (talk about a great crossbreeze!). Directly behind the building was a large fishing lake. The local Boy Scout troop was there to cook for FD participants (they had STEAK on the menu Saturday night, and brats for lunch. These guys have the right idea!). Antennas were good too — a tower with yagis for 6 and 2, an A3S tribander, and a couple of wire antennas. I think they ran 3A, but they were still trying to decide the call they were going to use. Good turnout, great site, and nice folks.
D. K4TG, Anderson County ARC, Lawrenceburg. These guys have a great setup. They were right at the corner of US62 and the 127 Bypass, great signage and visibility. They had three stations up and running, including an Orion II. Joe Miller, K4DZM was operating the Orion on CW with a pair of iambic paddles he handcrafted from two J-37 straight keys. I know that sounds very homebrewish, but Joe's craftsmanship made the key seem like a factory effort. Beautiful! Photos will be posted on the section web page. Also at their FD was the mobile command post from the state EMA. Bob Stephens was manning it, along with former SM Bill Uschan and some others. Wow, what a command post! Bob said his bosses don't care so much about the radio gear as they do about his new satellite video conferencing gear he has. He demoed it to me, logging into the video conferencing setups at the state EOC (the room was empty and dark) and a handful of National Guard armories, nearly all of which have the same satellite capability. Impressive!
E. Woodford County ARC, Versailles. My wife and I had a hard time finding them because they were located at the rear of a big park complex. We were there twice but didn't travel far enough to the rear to find them. The Woodford group were using the county EMA's mobile command post running two stations, an Alinco DX-77T and an Icom IC-7000. The Alinco seemed to suffer under crowded FD band conditions. The club also had use of a mobile crank-up tower, which also supported their wire antennas.
F. Bluegrass ARS, K4KJQ, Lexington. The Lexington club's call, K4KJQ, was a tongue twister for me as I tried to operate. I made a contact or two during the absence of the regular operator. Bill DeVore was next to me knocking down the Q's bigtime. Three stations, with one on PSK31. The digital ops at various sites said the Q's were difficult because of the crush of signals, and due to missteps at times from ops unfamiliar with digital operating. One guy was calling CQ Field Day on the digital subband on 20! Bill Estep had his satellite antennas on a mast and tripod in the back of his pickup truck, and he used it to help the club get satellite QSO credit. What an array to have on your truck! Pics coming of that too!
G. Fayette County ARES, AG4CM, Kentucky Horse Park camping area. My wife and I would NEVER have found the site without the help of catching someone on 2 meters. It was a great camping site on the edge of some pine trees, overlooking a huge field. One planned op had to work, so only Jimmy, AG4CM, was at the site. A second op arrived as we were about to leave. Jimmy had the best looking grilled burgers cookin on his little gas grill. Beautiful site, and my first visit to the horse park area.
H. Central Kentucky ARS, AA4NJ, Richmond, Ky. From the BARS FD site in Lexington, we had observed what appeared to be a large thunderstorm south of Lexington moving to the east/southeast. It was nearly dark by the time we hit Richmond (after stopping for some food). I had missed the FD site, and just happened to hear Glenn, KO4OL on the repeater in Richmond. Glenn is the KSN net manager, and it was funny to hear the surprise in his voice to hear me on the repeater signing mobile! He had a NTS message to send me per the bonus points for Field Day. I took the messsage via 2-meters, earning the club an additional 100 points. My visit was good for an additional 100 points, and I was happy to help.
Richmond had taken the brunt of the storm, which was intense but brief. No gear damaged or soaked, but a few anxious moments. They were running 6A, and they devoted a station to each of the usual bands (80/40/20, etc). They had a vareity of rigs, including an FT-2000, a couple of FT-990s, and FT-1000D, etc. Up on the hill away from the main site, AA4NJ was holding court (and a frequency) while knocking down the Q's on CW. The man can play a paddle like a violin!
I. Bullitt ARS, KY4KY, Pioneer Village City Hall, Bullitt Co. Our goal was to drive from Richmond to the Jessamine radio club's FD site, but the route was a twisty 2-lane road, which wasn't to my liking on a dark and stormy night. My wife and I headed for home and hit the road again Sunday for a visit in Bullitt County to the BARS club's FD site. They had three stations running, two on phone, one on CW. For the final hours of Field Day, they had people still operating. They surpassed 1,200 Q's in the final hour, a goal they had been shooting for. Congrats to Buddy KC4WQ and the rest of the guys who slogged it out.
SOUVENIR OF FIELD DAY 2008. During our travels to all these Field Day sites, we had as many hams as possible sign a t-shirt with a logo I designed especially for this road trip. The logo and shirt will be shown on the photos on the section web page. Everyone loved the idea of signing the shirt, and several people asked if it would be auctioned off. Hadn't thought about that, but its an interesting idea.
The road trip/FD tour was a lot of fun! We're tenatively planning for next year. We'll wind up going east or west I suspect, but there's lots of time to plan that trip.
That's all for now … 73 es cul …
de KY4Z … dit dit …