Navigation: Home Articles Diary Digital Voice RAE Course Station Guestbook
The South African Radio League's annual Field Day contest was held on the 9th and 10th of March, 2002. The contest tests the contestant's ability to operate a field station under simulated emergency conditions. The rules require that only emergency (non-mains) power sources be used; antennas are restricted to wire antennas and home-made verticals and may not be supported by any permanent man-made structure; power is restricted to 100W and station equipment may not be located in permanent buildings.
I decided several months before that this would be an ideal contest for new amateurs like myself with limited equipment. The antenna restrictions meant I would not have to compete against multielement beams, and thanks to the power restriction my lack of a linear amplifier wouldn't be a disadvantage. It was also an excellent excuse to get away from the city and operate from a remote location. I chose the Cedarberg Mountains about 300 km north-east of Cape Town, where there is a lovely guest farm with cottages that I had stayed in non several previous occasions. I knew from my experience during the CW contest last year that propagation is excellent and local QRM nonexistant.
In preparation for the contest I purchased an 8m field mast made up of 3 aluminium sections through the local Ham "Swap Shop" and after considerable analysis decided on a ZS6BKW multi-band dipole which I constructed. (You can find slides of a talk I gave to my radio club about the computer optimisation of multi-band dipoles here; it contains analysis of and dimensions for the ZS6BKW and similar antennas.) This and the mast were field-tested from Rondebosch Common, a park close to my home. I also made up a 12v power cable for my CW keyer, because although this is primarily a phone contest I felt that given the power and antenna restrictions, CW would be the best mode for picking up soome points for DX contacts in the late evening and early morning when there would be few South African stations operating.
My YL Stacey and I left for the Cedarberg on the afternoon of friday 8th March, the day before the contest. The car was packed with food, bedding, the mast (I don't have a roof-rack but fortunately it just fits into the car, although at some inconvenience to the front passenger), a 100 A-Hr sealed lead/acid battery, radio equipment and my 8" reflecting telescope, amateur astronomy being another of my interests. We arrived at the farm at about 9pm, having only got lost once thanks to my taking an unmarked dirt turnoff a couple of kilometres before the unmarked dirt turnoff I was supposed to take!
I set up the telescope (a Mag 1 Instruments 8" Portaball for any fellow astronomers out there) and allowed it to cool down to the ambient temperature (a balmy 20C or so) whilest making a fire for a braai (bar-b-que to the uninitiated). After supper Stacey and I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours doing a quick tour of some of the more celebrated astronomical objects - the Great Nebula in Orion, the planet Jupiter, Herschel's Jewel box and the Ghost of Jupiter planetary nebula amongst others. We went to bed at about 1am (early by astronomy standards) having decided that Saturday night was for contesting and Sunday night would be for some more serious astronomy. We had both taken Monday off work making this a very welcome 3-day weekend.
I was up at 10am on Saturday morning to start setting up the station outside the front of the bungalow in which we were staying. I had brought almost all my home station equipment: Kenwood TS430S (a lovely basic rig), Drake MN4C ATU, Katsumi keyer and of course that hefty 100 A-Hr battery. I had calculated that the battery would sustain my station for the weekend but wasn't quite sure whether the reduced voltage as the battery discharged would have any deliterious effect. As it turned out, the battery worked fine, I just had to reduce drive on CW somewhat to keep the rig happy - that's in part what the contest is all about, seeing whether ones standby power will actually do the job in an emergency.
Stacey helped me to put up the mast - it can easily be erected by two people in less than half an hour, which makes it ideal for this sort of occasion. The ZS6BKW was lofted in an inverted-V configuration with one end tied to a convenient tree and the other to a 1.7m rake handle that I brought with me for the purpose. The antenna was fed through 20m of RG213 (serious looking coax that) from the ATU. I tuned up on 80m, 40m and 20m and noted the ATU settings for each band. That left me with just enough time for a pleasant breakfast before the start of the contest at 12 noon local time.
My first QSO was on 40m with OM Bud ZS1B, who had organized the Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre field day station ZS1CT/P. I worked a number of other Cape Town stations on 40m before moving across to 20m to work the rest of the country. I stayed on 20m for the afternoon, although when the initial rush was over I moved across to the CW segment to work 9J2BO, UA3MJA, EU6KA and YT1PT. In the late afternoon I moved back to 40m and later 80m to take advantage of the better night-time propagation on these bands to work more contest zones for better band multipliers. I even managed to work ZS1CT/P on 160m although the SWR must have been horrible! At about 10:30pm I went back to CW and was rewarded by contacts with VK6VZ, F5LMJ, UA0ZS and UK0ZS. Only two points each and all the same zone, but every point counts!
I had planned to stay up all night but Stacey sensibly suggested that I would be hell to live with the next day and enticed me to bed at about midnight. I was up again at 6am, again working CW while waiting for the rest of South Africa to wake up. This time I worked K5RSS, KT3Y, ZS6AKF, ZS6KT and W9ZN - I was particularly pleased to have worked a couple of other South African stations on CW, since I don't often have that pleasure.
Then it was bulletin time and I managed to work several stations on 40m after the PEARS bulletin (thanks guys) and then many of my mates from Cape Town before and after the CTARC bulletin. Apart from a couple of contacts on 80m I spent most of the morning working phone on 20m, with many non-contestant stations coming up to give us some points. This was greatly appreciated, since there were relatively few contest stations operating (I only counted 12). All too soon it was midday and the end of the contest. Out of the 24 hour contest period I had operated for about 16 hours and counted 91 scoring QSOs.
Despite this I couldn't quite bear to take the station down so I moved it inside the bungalow to protect it from weather while Stacey and I went for a swim in the dam about 20m away. I spent most of the afternoon sipping dinks on the porch; the highlight was a large Cape Cobra which visited us, snaking its way across the lawn a few metres away pursued by three angry (and I would say suicidal) guinea fowl. It vanished into the long grass at the edge of the dam so Stacey and I were glad that we had already been for our swim! Coincidentally, the previous week I had listened to a most interesting talk on the HAMNET bulletin (the South African amateur radio emergency service) by Dr David Reece ZS1DFR about the treatment of snake bites so I knew that the Cape Cobra has a neurotoxic venom and if bitten we would have 1-2 hours to get to a hospital before the onset of symptoms. Unfortunately the nearest hospital would have been in Citrusdal, about 2 hours drive away - but I figured I would get there in record time if the need arose!
During the afternoon we watched the storm clouds build (so much for our astronomy night) and later that evening as I was enjoying some rag-chewing on CW I heard thunder approaching. I fininshed my QSO then sent "CL" and rolled up the 20m coax to the antenna - my appologies to the SP station calling me, but the storm was approaching fast and I didn't have time to explain. It was just as well as it soon started raining. That night Stacey and I sat through the biggest, nearest and most awe inspiring thunderstorm I have ever experienced. Lightning was flashing and thunder crashing all around us, including one strike which must have been very close as we heard a crack like a whip as well as the massive thunderclap. I thought the antenna might have been hit, but later inspection showed it to be undamaged.
The storm took out the mains power so we had dinner by candlelight (fortunately the cooker was gas). Once the storm had moved on I reconnected the coax to a very wet but undamaged antenna and QSOd by candlelight with ZS5PJM and ZS6TVV on 40m phone. It was nice to know that there been an emergency we could have summoned help despite both the telephone and the mains power being knocked out by the storm. But then I guess that's what field day is all about.