ARRL Field Day - 2021
Call: AI6DO
Operator(s): AI6DO
Station: AI6DO
Class: 2B QRP
QTH: LAX
Operating Time (hrs): 8
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40: 16
20: 38 2 29
15: 5 14
10:
6:
2: 28
222:
432: 1
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
----------------------------
Total: 59 31 43 Total Score = 1,725
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Comments:
Operated solo portable (2B1B) again like I did pre-2020 and turned in my best
Field Day score to date. Unlike previous years, I operated from the same site on
three separate occasions on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. For two of
those times, I lugged all my gear to the park, set up in the same location, and
tore it all down at the end of each day's operating. As usual, I brought far too
much gear that I didn't use, including spares for just about everything save the
radio and laptop.
I normally prefer to work a packet satellite for my satellite bonus but that
wasn't in the cards this year with ISS in FM repeater mode, FalconSat-3
inoperable due to a system crash last week, NO-84/PSAT being weak for the past
few weeks, and no other packet satellites available that can be accessed by an
APRS-ready HT. As a result, I had to brave the chaos on the FM satellites. I
drove out to my Field Day site early to try the ISS and AO-91 passes from 1845
to 1930 UTC. As expected, ISS was total mayhem; I heard only one completed QSO
on the entire 11 minute pass, and for most of the pass time the repeater was
essentially jammed. I had better luck on the AO-91 pass since it was well to the
west over the Pacific Ocean, which thins out the riffraff. I successfully
completed a contact about a third of the way into the pass and immediately went
QRT and headed out for lunch, returning later in the afternoon to set up for HF
and VHF operations. Having gotten the satellite contact out of the way, I was
able to leave the satellite gear behind for the rest of Field Day.
For HF, I used an Elecraft KX3 and PX3 with a MFJ-1979/2286 telescoping vertical
elevated about 4 feet with a single tuned radial for each band pointed to the
northeast. I find this antenna to be much higher-performing for contest
operations and faster to set up than the low inverted vee dipoles or end fed
antennas I used to use. I alternated between operating FT8 and FT4 with WSJT-X
integrated with N1MM Logger+ and operating CW with just N1MM Logger+. I was much
less clueless about WSJT-X and FT operating due to the ARRL June VHF contest two
weeks ago. I found the KX3 occasionally overheated even at 5W when running on
FT8. Unfortunately, this happened in the middle of two QSOs that happened to
occur at the end of a long string of unanswered CQs. Reducing the watchdog timer
setting forced me to give the radio a break from those long strings.
Since the FT modes didn't require my full attention, I used my TH-F6A HT
(elevated at about 3 feet with a whip antenna and tiger tail) to work local
stations on 2M FM. 2M FM is hopping in the Southern California area during VHF
contests and Field Day. 70CM was useless due to massive intermod at my location,
but was almost as busy as 2M FM in the June VHF contest two weeks ago so I'm
sure it was hopping this weekend as well.
I spent about 25 minutes total running on CW on 40M, 20M, and 15M on Sunday, and
only got picked up by the RBN a handful of times and never heard any callers. I
did have two stations just drop directly onto my run frequency and call CQ
without bothering to check that the frequency was clear. Perhaps it's because
they called QRL? at QRP before remembering to turn up the power? Sure, let's go
with that.
FT modes were tough going due to crowded conditions, so I often had to work
around the edges of the watering hole to avoid being QRMed by stronger
stations--and nearly everyone else is a stronger station. I learned that putting
my laptop in sleep mode results in some significant time loss in the system
clock, so I was over 2 seconds off from most other stations on Saturday. After
fighting through that handicap for a while I tried to manually correct my time,
worsening my problem at first until I was able to get back within about a second
of everyone else. Operated Saturday until my laptop ran out of juice and went
into sleep mode again. When I got home and turned the laptop back on, I found it
was off by a whopping 74 seconds. I resynced the system clock and installed
JTSync just in case, but avoided putting the laptop in sleep mode on Sunday by
bringing a DC converter to supplement the laptop's battery capacity, which I
normally avoid due to its extra weight and RFI on 20M. This laptop has other
issues like a constantly submarining cursor, a low brightness display, and lag
when trying to walk and chew gum at the same time. I expect it will be retired
before next year's Field Day.
Total score of 1725 includes 200 bonus points for emergency power on two
stations, 100 bonus points for satellite QSO; 100 bonus points for public
location; 100 bonus points for copying the W1AW bulletin; and 50 bonus points
for (pending) web submission. Total operating time was about 4 hrs on Saturday
and 4 hrs on Sunday, including repeated public relations work with curious
passersby at the park. Setup and teardown time of about 30 min each, each day.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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