Field Day Sunday, 1:47 p.m.
I wrapped up my Field Day 2020 about 90 minutes ago when my son arrived home with pizza– or thought I did. Just as I sat down to start this entry, I flipped on my Yaesu FT-950 in the old Novice 40 CW band, and heard an Ohio station calling CQ FD with less than 10 minutes to go.
What the hell! He was running 15-18 wpm, and I already had his call. I quickly dialed in the tuner. grabbed my Kent iambic, and gave him a call. He had trouble copying my class (1E), and I think he confused my state with my callsign, since both include “KY”. But regardless of the confusion, we completed the contact with several minutes left to spare, hi!
I have to say that Field Day 2020 was one of the most enjoyable Field Days I’ve had in quite a while. There’s probably several reasons why … for starters, I didn’t have to set up a station outside in a remote location … and I also didn’t have to tear down that station and pack it home.
The highlight of my Field Day were contacts with W1AW on two bands (through substantial pile-ups, no less!), and then I ran across Scott Davis, N3FJP, the software engineer who happened to be the author of the Field Day logging software I was using!
My best band this year was 15 meters, especially this morning. Signals were strong, and I was making Qs with every station I could hear. The old Inverted Vee was perking nicely! I took time to tune the entire 15 meter phone band, all the way to 21.450, and while that end of the band wasn’t crowded, I made some nice contacts there, including N3FJP.
I was doing so well on 15 meters that several times I had stations in the pile up I was busting call me to make a contact! It wasn’t my frequency, OM, I couldn’t work those guys.
I heard a few young folks at the mic, but probably not as many as a “normal” Field Day.
This being the “Pandemic Field Day of 2020,” the more I operated last night and today, the more Class D stations I worked. I only worked a couple of Class C mobile stations, and only a handful of Class A club stations, which was unusual but understandable given the circumstances.
I’m still not sure why my shack is RF City on 75 meter phone. I’ll have to check that out. I check in on my Georgia CW net from there every night, and no RF issues then.
My son brought home the worst pizza I’ve ever tasted from Domino’s today. The pizza was supposed to be a specialty pizza — barbecue chicken — but I couldn’t taste the chicken or barbecue. I’m almost certain one or probably more ingredients were left off. Thank God he only bought one!
My wife is due back this afternoon, so I should probably make sure the kitchen is in order before she arrives. If they XYL ain’t happy, nobody’s happy!
73 es CUL … de KY4Z …. SK SK ….. (dit dit) …