[3830] KN6OX 2A FD SV VERY LONG
Woods, Eric D edwoods
edwoods at pbsac01.isp.PacBell.COM
Thu Jul 17 14:29:00 EDT 1997
FIELD DAY, 1997 (view pictures at - http://ns.net/~sporten/)
The Golden Bear Telephone Pioneer Amateur Radio Club again combined with
some members of the River City Contesters to operate field day at Steve,
KN6OX's, family ranch outside of Latrobe. If you haven't been there, it can
be described as a half hour trip on pavement from Folsom and forty-five
minutes on a three mile dirt road with 3 gates safari. All you ex mountain
- top microwavers would shed a tear in memory of past similar experiences.
We decided to run more than 150 watts this year to increase the number of
contacts during the weekend so that everyone would have lots of other
stations to work. We kinda knew that our final score would be lower due to
the fact that the less than 150 watt multiplier would no longer be valid,
but what the heck. Were we there to win or to have fun? We voted for fun.
Steve has a small one room shack that contains a wood-burning stove (shades
of my grand mother in Eureka) a small table and couple of pantrys. Outside
the shack are two picnic tables and benches. We put the two stations , Icom
765's and Kenwood TL-922 amps on one table and food on the other. We used
two lap-top computers, networked, running CT version 8 to log the contacts.
Antennas were a TH-3 on a crank-up mast at 30', a 4 element 20 monobander on
30' of old Rohn 6 tower, a 40 meter dipole stretched between the 30' tower
and the windmill tower, and my old 75/80m inverted vee at 30'.
We put the TH-3 up Friday night so we could do our annual DX warm-up on 20M.
I worked a couple of ZL's, a couple of VK's, a KH0 (on Saipan) and couple
of BV2's in Taiwan. We shut down at about 1 in the morning to get our rest
for the main antenna party which started at 7 AM Saturday.
The 30' tower went up fairly smoothly with 6 people helping. The 20M
antenna went up not so smoothly, but finally went into place when a second
climber went to the top to help the first guy.
The 40 dipole went up a little later and the 75/80 vee waited until just
before dinner to go up.
We had our problems! Steve's 765 decided to only put out 5 watts until he
opened the top panel and started manipulating the plug - in boards a couple
of times. True maintenance engineering! Hit it until it works!
Then our old 386sx lap-top decided it didn't like the program and gave us a
series of error messages. This was starting to feel like work! We
fortunately had some spare pentium notebooks that were pressed into service
after figuring out where the proper comports were.
Finally, all computers, amps and radio's were working. Time for a break?
NO.
Mary, KE6LOE, our secretary and newletter publisher had two chores this
weekend. One was to set up a novice station and antennas and the other was
to produce dinner. The dinner was a FEAST. She barbequed a turkey in one
Weber Kettle and cooked potatos in the other. When the potatos were done,
on went the London Broils she had marinated, then the corn. FABULOUS.
Thanks Mary.
Bill, WG6H and Chris, K6PG helped Mary set up her station and put wires up
in the trees using the "Pint water bottle filled with water tied to a rope
and then thrown into the trees method". Worked great. Mary ended up with
about 7 cw contacts on the novice frequencies. She was using an old Ten -
Tec CW tranceiver at 25 watts out. Another FABULOUS effort on her part.
Meanwhile, the River City Contester contingent of operators was taking
advantage of great conditions on 20 and 40, both CW and SSB. Dave K6RC and
George, N6ZS were running rates of several hundred an hour for a short time
( combined ). Dave said ,"This is as much fun as Aruba", alluding to a trip
to big contest station in South America a few years back.
Bill, WG6H, set up a vhf/uhf station in his pick up and made contacts on 2
and 440.
Derrick K7FF, set up for 6 M using surplus mast sections to support his
antenna. He even used an Army Olive-Drab colored strecher for an operating
table.
Other River City Contester Participants were Randy, AA6WJ, and Phil, K6RJ.
Les, W6TEE and Matthew (insert his call here) showed up Saturday AM and Les
helped me put on couple of PL-259's for the 80M antenna run and then we
wired up a DB-25 for computer CW keying. No rest yet.
Julie, KN6UV, sat down and operated 20M ssb for a while and got some world -
class coaching from Dave, K6RC. Watch our world - Julie's an aggressive
contester now!!
I took the midnight to 6 AM shift and switched back and forth between 75/80
and 40, mostly on CW, while Steve, KN6OX ran the other radio on SSB. IT
ACTUALLY GOT COLD AT NIGHT THIS YEAR! I didn't bring a jacket, so I draped
a sleeping bag over my shoulders. Steve did the same. Dave, K6RC woke up
at 5 am and saw us in our protective clothing and commented, "Looks like a
couple of Squaws operating". It was so cold in the early morning that the
color computer displays faded substantially. You had to hold your mouth
just right to read the screen!
Sadly, the end of the contest occured at 11 AM on Sunday and we turned the
radios off. Some people had commitments and went down the hill ASAP -
others, KN6OX, K7FF, K6PG, K6RJ and me, K6GV, took down antennas and put
stuff away for next year (or earlier, Eric) while Julie, KN6UV took care of
camp things while keeping track of her son Anthony.
Each year we name our combined group based on what happened to us, or what
equipment we used, or something special. We have been :
Cosumnes River Phased Vertical and Barbeque Society (we used phased
verts. on 40 that year)
Cosumnes River Short Tower and Barbeque Society (could only get 30' of
tower in the air, not 40)
This year, since a puma was seen on the property, and since we ran
amplifiers, the name chosen was:
COSUMNES RIVER MOUNTAIN LION AND KILOWATT SOCIETY.
We left at about 2 PM and I was home by 3:15. I cleaned out the ice chests
and took a shower and fell asleep watching an Indy car race.
This was the best FD yet by the group. If you want to have a good time, eat
too much, play too much radio, go to the Cosumnes River to cool off and hang
with a bunch of radio - loco's and learn about HF radio and how to set-up
and run a station in the field (excellent practice for emergencies) , come
with us next year. We can always add radios, antennas and steaks to
accommodate more operators.
Eric, K6GV
Final results were:
BAND CW QSO CW QSO PTS SSB QSO SSB QSO PTS
160 0 0 0 0
80 105 210 107 107
40 385 770 314 314
20 551 1102 548 548
17 0 0 0 0
15 39 78 74 74
12 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0
6 0 0 18 18
2 0 0 14 14
NOV 7 14 0 0
440 0 0 2 2
PKT 1 2 0 0
--------------------------------------------
1088 (2136) + 1077 (1077) = 2165 Total QSO
BONUS POINTS CLAIMED:
EMERGENCY POWER X 2 STATIONS =200
PACKET CONTACT 100
10 VHF CONTACTS 100
------
TOTAL BONUS POINTS 400
(2176 CW QSO PTS + 1077 SSB QSO PTS) X 1 POWER MULTIPLIER + 400 BONUS =
3,653
NOVICE STATION : KE6LOE - 7 cw q's x 2 x 2 power mult.
= 28
. ------
****************************************
** **
** 3,781 Points Total **
** **
****************************************
Operator List:KN6OX, KN6UV, WG6H, KE6LOE, AA6WJ, K7FF, K6RC, K6RJ, N6ZS,
K6PG
K6GV,W6TEE
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