The Racine Megacycle Club conducted its 1999 Field Day exercise on June 26 and 27 1999 at Decision Farm, 5400 6 Mile Road in Caledonia, Wisconsin. Members of the club and a few others participated. The site is the home of Larry and Wendy McCalvy (WA9JMO and N9PAC).
The club decided to operate class 2A this year, operating one station on HF/SSB and one station on HF/CW. In addition, several club members set up and operated a novice/technician station on 6 meters and 2 meters.
Participants met for breakfast at about 0800 Saturday morning and then split up to either go directly to the site, or to pick up equipment at the Racine Red Cross building. Station preparation and set up started by about 0930.
The HF stations went on the air at 1300 local time (1800Z) and were operated more or less continuously until 1300 local on Sunday.
Tear down and transportation of equipment was completed by 1530 local on Sunday.
No participants were injured or killed. The only casualty seemed to be fatigue and sunburn.
A raw score of 2396 was achieved by the operation. The score was computed by using the ARRL submission form. A summary of the QSOs follows:
|
Band |
CW QSOs |
Phone QSOs |
|
160 |
0 |
0 |
|
80 |
10 |
35 |
|
40 |
172 |
4 |
|
20 |
111 |
142 |
|
15 |
24 |
156 |
|
10 |
0 |
88 |
|
6 |
8 |
108 |
|
2 |
0 |
15 |
|
Totals |
325 |
548 |
|
Points |
650 |
548 |
There was an additional x2 multiplier for operating with less than 150 watts output for all stations. Additional bonus points were scored for making at least 5 QSOs using only “natural power”, for using 100% “Emergency Power” (generators), for attempting to get media publicity, for sending a message to the Section Manager and for copying the ARRL Field Day message. The final calculated score is up to the ARRL.
· Generators – The club’s “Generac” 5KW had problems on start up. There didn’t seem to be any spark, and the engine would not start up. KB9UGH and KB9UGG took charge and did some troubleshooting. They eventually got it running by bypassing the kill switch and fixing a leak in the fuel pump. The generator should be repaired before it is used again.
A second generator was loaned to the operation by Metropolitan Milwaukee Auto Auction (N9WHR) and was transported to the site by KB9TPT. This is the second year we have used this generator, and it performed flawlessly.
The generators were closer to the CW tent than they should have been. The noise from the engines was quite bothersome. A different position for them should be thought out ahead of next year’s operation.
Gasoline was purchased locally for the generators and $18.60 was spent on fuel. Gasoline was purchased on Saturday morning (10 gallons) and again on Sunday morning (6 gallons). It was reported that one generator ran out of gas during the night. More attention should be paid to checking the fuel supply on a regular basis.
· Logging – three computers were used for logging QSOs. Two were provided by W9EH, and KA9RZL provided the computer for the CW operation. All machines were using “LOG-EQF” as a logging program.
The KA9RZL computer was using a compression routine for its floppy disk drive. This caused the contents to be unreadable when it came time to summarize the logs. The set up of the CW computer was different from the other machines as well. This caused a few minor differences in the formatting of entries. While this is not a substantial problem, it makes some of the entries more difficult to read.
There were many errors in the logs. Most of them were caused by inexperience of the logging operators with the program or the format for required entries in the logs. This did not cause any substantial problems with using the entries for scoring, but the logs are far from consistent. More attention should be paid to making sure that all operators are familiar with proper format and logging requirements.
· Equipment – A Ten-Tec transceiver was loaned to the operation for use in the phone tent. An antenna tuner was also provided by N9WHR. The rig had a problem with its power supply causing it to become unusable on receive. The problem eventually went away, but caused the loss of several contacts early in the operation. The antenna tuner proved to be not functioning at all. This was discovered before the start time of the contest, and a club-owned antenna tuner was substituted. During the troubleshooting of this problem, the operators (KA9OIL and KC9IS) tried three separate antennas, having them lowered and raised on the antenna mast. Much time and energy was spent thinking that the antennas were defective. Actually, they probably were performing just fine. The antenna used for the contest was an 80-meter dipole.
KA9RZL provided the Icom IC706 used in the CW operation. It performed without a hitch. It was configured for use with the computer, taking advantage of features of the radio and the logging program. The CW operation used a G5RV wire antenna.
KB9LLV provided his IC706 for use on 6 meters and 2 meters in the Novice/Tech tent. It worked well. This operation started with a vertical antenna and switched to a 6/2-meter quad provided by N9WHR. It was mounted on a ten-foot mast and rotated by hand.
An attempt was made to score additional points by making a contact through the AO-27 satellite, but it was unsuccessful. N9MGH did make a contact through AO-27, but it was before the contest officially started, so it didn’t count.
Many operators and others on site used hand-held radios on 146.46 MHz simplex to keep in touch with each other, especially during the set up phase. This proved to be very useful.
On Sunday, KA9OIL brought his Icom IC-756 to use in the phone tent. It worked very well, and it was a real treat to use such a sophisticated radio.
It should be noted that none of the club’s transcievers were used for the field Day operation. The club should think about this for next year. We haven’t really tested the club’s capabilities if our equipment remained in storage. Also, if we don’t intend to use the club equipment at field Day, we should consider selling it until we have a permanent club station.
The state of the stored antennas, tents and other gear used for Field Day is questionable. None of the gear was inventoried, examined or tested ahead of time. While this provides an opportunity for solving problems that occur, it might be better to prevent the problems from happening.
· Operating – this year we seemd to have more interference between the CW and phone operations. This happened regardless of what bands were being used by either tent. The antennas are close together, and we were probably suffering from overload on the receivers. More separation between antennas should be planned.
There was no plan as to who would staffed the stations at any given time. By studying the log files, it can be seen that there were periods late at night when no one was operating. More effort should be put into making sure we have the stations staffed round the clock.
We gave the opportunity to some newer hams to operate on HF during the contest. Several of the code-free technicians took advantage and tried their hand at operating. Notable were KB9UGG, KB9QZR, the entire family of Weeks hams (John – AA9XD, Matt – KB9ULU and Patrick – KB9ULT), and KB9RMA.
There was no “assignment” of more experienced operators to oversee the participation by the newer operators. This was another aspect of the operation that happened by chance, but should be planned.
Operator sign in sheets seemed to get lost in the shuffle at each station. We should pay more attention to what is actually on the operating tables. Additional reference material (lists of section identifiers, prefix allocations, band plans, contest rules, etc.) should be available for the operators to use. Scratch pads and pens seemed to be readily available this year. However, the sheets of paper tend to accumulate and get in the way after a while. A trash container should be available in each station.
Some mention was made of attempting to link the tents together by computer. This had been done in the past with marginal success. The logging program we used does not allow for this kind of operation. We would have to investigate other logging programs and provide for cabling and interfacing the computers. Linking the stations this way would allow an operator to see which band was being used by the other stations and avoid interference and rule violations. We could accomplish the same thing by making a sign for each tent that could be hung in a visible manner to allow the others to see what band was being used.
· Safety – No one was assigned to check for obvious safety problems during our event. Fortunately, no one got injured, but there were several problems that should have been noticed and fixed early. For example, the fire extinguisher was not with the generators until they needed refueling. Also, there were a couple of guy ropes and antenna tie-offs that should have been in different positions. As these and others were noticed, they were corrected. Safety should be a primary concern in this kind of operation. The club should appoint or designate someone who will be responsible for checking for safety problems early in the operation and making sure they get corrected in a timely fashion.
· General atmosphere – It was mentioned that there were no “butt cans” for smokers this year. We should have provided them, as it would have made clean up go a bit faster. We had only one trash can, which didn’t seem to be much of a problem because the club didn’t provide any food this year. With more food, more provisions for trash must be made.
We had a little rain on Saturday evening, but it didn’t seem to affect the operation much. We had no plan for what to do with equipment in the event of a storm. We probably should think this through for next time.
We did provide some items for insect control and they were well used. The items were donated.
The tents we used for operating were placed without much thought. The CW tent should have been much farther away from the generators to provide for a quieter environment. The west end of the peninsula was occupied by tents used for sleeping by the few who stayed the night. This seemed to work out well, but it was also not planned.
Vehicles were parked in the operating area. This took up quite a bit of space and probably contributed to the placement of the tents. Perhaps the vehicles should be unloaded and then moved out of the area so that they don’t interfere with placement of other equipment.
Visitors and operators not busy with anything else seemed to congregate near the phone tent because it was a convenient place to sit and talk. This is often distracting to the operators. One of the tents should be designated as a “social” area and not used for operating. That would provide a place for the social activities without disturbing the operators.
An additional tent would provide a place for operators and visitors to eat, rather than at the operating tables. While the club made a decision to not purchase any food or beverages for this event, a coffee pot would have been a welcome addition. The club could have provided a cooler and ice for storage of beverages brought by the participants.
The additional tent could be used as “headquarters” for the operation, providing a place for visitiors to pick up information about ham radio and sign our guest log (which got lost in the shuffle this time out).
All told, we had a good time at this year’s Field Day outing. As usual, the club score will not be the highest in the country, but our club does not concentrate its efforts on winning the contest. We provide an event to “train” new operators, we offer an opportunity for members to work together on a project and we do test our emergency preparedness, at least to some extent.
Bob Burgermeister, W9EH
Vice President