Sunday morning, June 28, 2020
At 2 p.m. Saturday, June 27, 2020, Field Day began as the HF bands began to roar to life. I was still cleaning up the shack; actually, I was filing away bugs that were cluttering the operating position. Hell, I didn’t have room for a laptop to log for Field Day!
I worked Field Day off and on until about midnight. I started on 40, then shifted to 15 meters for most of the afternoon. Propagation on 15 meters was in the eastern U.S. but followed the sun as the day went on. I was working West Coast by the time the band was dying down after dark local time.
I made a couple of contacts on 10 — I was checking 10 and 6 meters for band openings during the day, and only found a handful of stations on 10. The CW portion of 10 was very busy, which made me wonder where the phone stations were!
I operated on 20 meters, back to 40 after dark, and then my plan was to spend the night on 75 meters phone.
Most field days in the past, I spent the overnight shift — midnight to 8 a.m. — working stations on 75 meters. I would find a frequency and camp out, and call CQ Field Day and work stations use the “hunt-and-pounce” method I used earlier in the day.
Today’s Field Day contacts were the first phone contacts I’ve made in the shack for probably 3 years. And again, my plan was to spend the overnight hours on 75 — but that’s not gonna happen, much to my chagrin.
I’m having a MAJOR RF problem on 75 meters phone. Past RF issues were related to the need to ground the mic cable shield to an actual ground on the radio. I’ve done the jumper-wire-from-the-connector-to-the-mic-ground routine in the past, and its worked fine. But the ground jumper I installed years ago to fix that problem was still in place. I even tried a second jumper. No go. RF out the damn whazoo! What gives???
I don’t have a decent ground in the shack, and I think that would make a difference. Of course, I’m not sure there’s not an issue going on with my antenna … we had a thunderstorm roll through, and I’m not certain my feedline — 300-ohm spliced in two places — is intact. I’ll have to check it tomorrow in the daylight.
I’ve never had this kind of RF before that grounding the mic cable did not fix. Instead of staying up all night operating, I’m going to get a shower and go to bed, I guess.
I haven’t worked any Kentucky stations, though I heard KY4KY in a pileup with me trying to work a station.
My antenna has worked fine all day, but when storms roll through, you never know what might have happened.
FIELD DAY OBSERVATIONS. I’m thankful that the ARRL changed the rules for 2020 to allow Class “D” stations — home stations on commercial power — to work all other class Field Day station. There were a handful of Class “A” club stations on the air, a smattering of Class “C” (mobile) stations, a few Class “F” and a whole bunch of Class “D”” stations and Class “E” stations (home stations on emergency power).
You forget how well a YL’s voice penetrates the QRM during Field Day. So far this year, I haven’t done a “Field Day Two-fer” — that’s when you hear two stations on the same frequency calling CQ Field Day and that don’t hear each other. Sometimes when you call one, both will respond. You give them your exchange, they roger it, and off you go with a Field Day two-fer!
My wife has been out of town all weekend, which worked great for Field Day. I’m hoping to get up in time to work some more 40 and 15 meters tomorrow.
HOW DO YOU STORE BUGS? I needed to safely store 8 or 9 bugs that were cluttering the operating desk, and I had to figure out the best way to do that.
While my son and I were cleaning out our mud room, I found a medium sized plastic bin. I got my bubble wrap from the packing table, and I wrapped each bug up in bubble wrap, then taped it up with a label noting the the key, serial number, etc. I think I put 8 or 9 bugs in that bin, carefully rolled in bubble wrap and labeled. The one thing you have to consider is how damn heavy the bin gets. This is a medium small bin, so that’s about its capacity. I’m going to store them in that box and label the box with the inventory. Not idea, but it’ll work for the meantime.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z SK SK …. (dit dit )