KF3M	Hanover Area Hamming Association Hanover, Pennsylvania

Field Day 2007

June 23, 2007
June 24, 2007
It was a fine Field Day!

KF3M, 2A, Eastern Pennsylvania

The first arrivals show up early Saturday morning. All stations were in the pavilion. The cone marks the location of the balloon vertical. The school bus is not ours.

The 50 foot tower: Antennas were a three element tri-band yagi for 20-15-10 meters. Above that were a 2 meter yagi and a 70 cm yagi. A 6 meter Ringo topped off the stack.

Un-sorting the Carolina Windom: One end went to the 40 foot mast in the background. The other end went to a tree near the pavilion.

All stations were ready and operating at the start of the contest.

The VHF/UHF station used a DX-70H on 6 meters. An IC-271H was used on 2 meters. This computer was the logbook server. Each station had a logging computer which was networked to the server.

We shared this site with two little league baseball games Saturday morning. After the games, we invited the kids to check out Ham Radio.

HF Station #1 working 20 meter SSB.

We had to wait until dark for the wind to die down enough to get the balloon vertical up.

This year we added twenty, 50 foot radials to the vertical. The improvement on 80 meters was noticeable. We planned to use it on 160 meters. But in the heat of the contest, we forgot.

The vertical was 1/2 wavelength on 80 and 1/4 on 160 meters.

HF Station #1 running 20 meters SSB.

HF Station #1 is now on 40 meters.

In the middle of the night, 40 meter CW made us a lot of contacts.

HF Station #2 on 75 meters. The temperature plunged during the night. Note the logger wearing a winter coat.

Early Sunday morning and we could get a photograph of the balloon vertical. We pulled it down right after this and before the winds picked up.

LOCATION:
For the second year we set up in the carnival grounds of the Pleasant Hill Fire Company. We used a pavilion on the top of a small hill.

EQUIPMENT:
We set up two HF stations plus a VHF/UHF station. Both HF stations used standard 100 watt transceivers. A three element tri-band yagi was set up on a 50 foot tower. This was a nice improvement over the simple wire antennas used previously. A Carolina Windom was used on the other bands. It was 50 feet high on one end and 40 feet on the other. At sunset we got a 130 foot vertical pulled up by a balloon. This year we added twenty 50 foot radials to this antenna.

We did not get the VHF/UHF station set up until Sunday. A DX-70H and ringo antenna was used on 6 meters. An IC-271H was used on 2 meters. It fed a small yagi on the 50 foot tower. The 70 cm station also had a small yagi on this tower.

Each station had it own computer for logging. Each was connected to a server by a wireless network

Power was supplied by a gasoline generator. It performed flawless the entire weekend.

OPERATING:
We kept both HF stations running the entire 24 hour period. The VHF/UHF station operated on and off most of Sunday. Everybody who wanted to operate got all the time that they wanted.

FOOD:
We prepared Saturday lunch and dinner and Sunday breakfast and lunch on site. The Fire Company has a professional kitchen about 50 feet from the operating pavilion. Nice.

SCORE:
We entered as 2-Alpha, Eastern Pennsylvania. And how did we do?

We made 1005 contacts. 909 SSB, 95 CW and 1 digital.
We Worked All States.
We used CW, Digital, SSB and FM modes.
We did very well with bonus points this year.
200 points - Less than 150 watts.
100 points - Media Publicity.
100 points - Set up in public place.
100 points - Information booth.
100 points - NTS message to SCM.
100 points - W1AW message.
100 points - Formal NTS traffic.
100 points - Natural power.
100 points - Site visit by elected official.
100 points - Site visit by a served agency.
100 points - Youth achievement.
200 points - Non-traditional modes.

It looks like we have a claimed score of 3652 points. This calculation was before the logs were submitted, so it is subject to change.

The Hanover newspaper, The Evening Sun, ran a very nice front page article on us in the Sunday edition. It is on line.

Did I mention that we had FUN!

This contest is sponsored by the ARRL. Results will be posted here. The soapbox is interesting reading about how other clubs did Field Day.

Check out what we did at Field Day 2006.

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