Field Day Follies

[pescatore_jt%ncsd.dnet at gte.com]

Well, the massive WB2EKK Field Day operation has come and gone, and as I return
and read the contest-reflector messages I realize my biggest mistake was not
inviting that famous 220-hour-while-playing-with-a-baby operator WN4KKN! We had 
5 kids below age 4 (plus two 12 year olds,) that tended to slow us down. So did
leaving the radios unattended to go water skiing. Going hiking Sunday morning
seemed to have an adverse effect on rates, as well. In general, I noticed rates
were marginally higher when someone was actually operating, and were
drastically lower when the radios weren't turned on at all.

We made about 40 contacts through various satellites using a homebrew 6 el 2M
quad and a homebrew 450 Mhz helix, mounted on a camera tripod sitting on the
deck. The satellite radios consisted of one of those Uniden 10M rigs, some
hamfest special transverters, and an old R1000 receiver. 

On HF, we had my TS850 (the FD radio  in a box) and a G5RV at 30'. We were PW
above 40M, but I did start out the operation with 220 Qs on 40 SSB in the first
two hours. 80M conditions seemed atrocious to me, not noisy but high
absorption. We had 2 QSOs on 10M, the usual Saturday night opening was pretty
poor this year. I never even heard a 10M CW signal.


John WB2EKK PESCATORE_JT at NCSD.GTE.COM