June 24 and 25, 2006
Over 800 contacts and we stayed dry all weekend. The Baltimore Amateur Radio Club, BARC, joined us for Field Day 2006. We set up in the carnival grounds of the Pleasant Hill Fire Company just South of Hanover, Pennsylvania. Saturday morning there was a lot of baseball players but by afternoon the place was all ours.
The first job was to get the 50 foot trailer tower set up. The 2 meter yagi was on top. The G5RV HF antenna would hang from here to a tree near the bandstand - the white building in the background. The pavilion near the top right housed all three stations.
The Gap Eagle DX HF antenna is ready to go.
Now to get the other end of the G5RV up in the trees. Of course we forgot the sling shot, the bow and arrow and the casting rod. A ratchet wrench on a light line got it almost to the top of the trees. Notice the small building to the right with a lot of blue barrels lined up along side it. This is the carnival grounds kitchen. This was nice. We just lit the grill and started cooking with professional equipment. We cooked all of our meals there.
The server. Each station has it own computer for logging and duping.
HF Station 1. The TS-570 was generally used with the G5RV. Yes, the filters are indispensable.
The VHF station. The 6 meter antenna did not arrive. We used only the IC-271H on 2 meters with a yagi on top of the trailer tower. We could not get a mast mounted pre-amplifier and the 150 feet of coax was a killer. Not spectacular but we made some contacts and had a good time with it.
Another shot of HF station 1. A lot of CW contacts were made here Saturday night.
The trailer tower with 2 meter antenna on the left. The feedline to the G5RV on the right. The Gap Eagle was in the grassy area to the far right. Sadly, the 200 foot cell tower was not available to us. But we could hear noise from it when the 2 meter antenna was pointed at it.
The Gap Eagle DX produced disappointing results. By Saturday afternoon the baseball players had all gone home. So we erected a Carolina Windom from the trailer tower to the backstop. It worked much better.
There is no better birthday present than a good Field Day. The cake was a nice touch - and tasty. 68 years and 56 Field Days down and looking forward to more of both.
HF station 2, another TS-570, used the Gap Eagle but later switched to the Carolina Windom. During the night the 80 meter balloon vertical was used. One generator ran this station and the VHF station (to the right). The second generator ran the HF station 1 and the server (to the rear). We wrapped the pavilion with plastic sheeting to keep the expected rain out. The whole East Coast was forecast to have torrential rains all weekend. It never came. Sunday morning it rained just hard enough that you did not want to be outside. That was as bad as it got. Meanwhile, two miles to the South it rained hard enough to slow traffic. 25 miles to the South they were rescuing people with boats. The Gods of Field Day smiled on us this year.
There was wind all day, but at dusk the it died down. So we got 85 cubic feet of helium into the 5.5 foot balloon and pulled up 130 feet of wire. It loaded nicely on 80 meters. And worked very well.
This contest is sponsored by the ARRL. Rules are available on their web site. Eventually, the results will be posted. Meanwhile, the soapbox is very interesting reading.
Check out what we did at Field Day 2005.
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Hanover Area Hamming Association
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