High Sierra Field Day Group

We are back from Field Day 2010. We had a good time and about 15 people participated in our FD group event. We put up Mike’s quadruple extended zepp again and it rocked on 40 and 80 meters. Eric brought out his new trailer. Frank did digital mode this year and learned a great deal. Robert was able to snag a couple of satellite Q’s. My Spiderbeam took awhile to reassemble but worked well on 20 and 15. Cal ran a HiQ tuna Dipole. Rigs included a pair of IC 756 Pro III’s, FT 100, TS 480, IC 706, a couple of K3’s, IC 7000, FT 857, SDR 3000 and a few I didn’t list. We had limited internet access via Frank’s EDGE AT&T Junxion box wireless hotspot. FDLog handled the logging with many laptops operating synchronized via wireless. Power came from various batteries and mostly Honda generators including 650, 1000, 2000 and 3000. The Honda EU3000is was amazingly easy to pull start (the battery was dead).

Field Day is about testing equipment and we tested more than ever before. This included radios, generators, batteries, power supplies, and Antenna Launchers. Franks newly contructed old kit worked well, as did the regulars including Eric’s soda bottle chamber linear and my CSV17. I tested a new prototype piston valve 17 inch launcher that has great performance.

Prototype PV17 Launcher at FD 2010

Photo by Dave Bermann W6PS

Radiofest has come and gone, and folks are preparing for the trip to Dayton . It is also time to start thinking about Field Day for 2010. Get any new gear well beforehand and check it out. Update the firmware. Find the manual and the spare fuses. Check the generator. Just a couple of months to go. Pick out a new antenna to try. Build a Pneumatic Antenna Launcher. (Or assemble that kit you bought some time ago…). The new kits are easier to assemble and new instructions are on the web now.

Hopefully the sunspots will return and we’ll have some good propagation. Right now the bands are a bit flat.

The Field Day Logging software has a new website. There is a suggestion form for user suggestions, and a new discussion forum.

— Alan, wb6zqz

We have heard that there will be a QRP Pacificon in a couple of weeks. See the NorCal QRP Club website for more info. Hope to see you there!

Field Day is almost upon us again. It came quicker this year, stealthily sneaking up through a crowded calendar. We held the annual Planning meeting at the new proposed FD Site for a change. The meeting was a bit dis-organized with folks scattered about, but we did get a good look at the site. It looks like we’re going to have a good turnout this year. Hopefully the bands will open up and be good to us.

The FDLog software has been slightly updated. See the FDLog page in the wiki for the latest version.

Hope everyone has a great FD! See you on the air!!!

We had a great Field Day this year. We tried out a new site along highway 88 in the Sierras and put up some new antennas. The group was smaller than usual due to calendar conflicts this year. Attendees included Mike F, Rick, Brad, Alex, Dawn, Alan, Cal, Eric and Dave. Ken went with the SBARA group, Oliver had a calendar conflict and Frank was on call and had to stick close to home. Glenn and Judy were planning to come but Judy did not feel up to it that day. Rich and Mike C wanted to come but had too much work to get away. Chris D really wanted to come also but just could not get away long enough to do so.

We had some new equipment to try out this year. Alan brought a Spiderbeam (actually finished building it), Mike F built a 40 meter double extended Zepp, and Cal brought a “new” trailer. Mike F’s Icom Pro III was also new. Eric had a new digital mode interface – the “Navigator”, and a new Icom 7000 rig set up in his trailer, a very clean and comfortable station, and he probably set a new group record for digital contacts on Field Day. He used an AH-4 autotuner and an L type antenna launched into the trees.

Mike’s double extended Zepp worked very well. He was greeted with an immediate pileup on 40 meters as soon as he turned on Saturday, and he worked a lot of stations. Alan’s Spiderbeam worked well on 20 meters, though it is suspected that one or more of the wire elements are not cut properly since the SWR on 17 and 15 were not up to spec.

The pnemuatic launchers worked well, and were used to put the beam up between two trees, as well as the wire antennas.

Alan brought a TGElectronics dc voltage booster for his station (Icom Pro III, TenTec Hercules amplifier, Spiderbeam). The ProIII does not seem to be sensitive to the voltage, so it may not be required, but it worked well and did not generate noise in the receiver. The DC was provided by a pair of 100AH Dynasty AGM batteries in parallel, and charged by a Progressive Dynamics 60A RV power supply and a Honda EU2000is generator. In the past this power system has not generated noise, however in this setup some noise was noted, and more work needs to be done on this.

Cal used some vertical antennas and a TS480 and made quite a few contacts.

Dave brought his great callsign that we used (W6PS, or W6 Power Supply) and some excellent operating skills. He also brought some radio gear but there was so much gear already set up he didn’t unpack it.

Rick returned after a long absence from our FD expeditions, and logged a lot of stations.

Alex and Brad teamed up and made a batch of contacts all over the country, and a few foreign stations as well. Alex had a good introduction to Ham Radio.

We used a WiFi network and FDLog to do the logging. The software worked fine, but we did have a few glitches with the WiFi network. Make sure to set the DNS leases short (5 minutes) and provide battery backed up power to the WiFi router to reduce the problems associated with the network bouncing up and down. Next year we will move to LinkSys WRT54G type routers running DD-WRT, and have several configured the same for backup, plus DC power and good antennas.

We had a great BBQ saturday night and swapped old and new stories, taking a break from the bands.

Thanks to all and we had a great time. Looking forward to next year!

73

AlanB