[Mldxcc] 2005 Field Day - K6AO

[Jim Venneman]

Howdy,
 
Here is the preliminary report on the club's Field Day effort (I will send out a detailed report, with band-by-band numbers, later this week. We made 2,677 contacts - 1,409 on cw and 1,268 on phone. Our QSO point total gives us 8,172 points plus 850 bonus points for a total claimed score of 9,022 points!
 
OK - a little perspective here - our claimed score last year was 7,850 and our 2003 score was 6,936, so we keep getting a little better at this each year.
 
Thanks to all participants, who were (in no particular order) - K6LRN, WB6GEF, N6NIA, KF6T, WK6I, WX6V, N6RK, K6TKD, K6BEW, and NU6T along with a visit from ARRL SM and club member W6RFF. 
 
Why the higher score this year? Well - the club's new 4-element 20 meter beam rocked!!!! 1,217 of our total QSOs were made on 20 meters. The 40-meter wire beam experiment also worked great - contributing another 741 contacts in the log. We also kept two stations manned all night long for the first time in our past three FD efforts. The most interesting part of the weekend, for me, was N6RK's "falling derrick" setup for raising our beam about 25 feet up on aluminum tower sections. It worked very well! What wasn't so great was persistent computer problems experienced on one of the stations. Your FD Coordinator learned a valuable lesson on how much time it really takes to adequately prepare computers and rigs for an outing like this one. We held a brief critique session Sunday afternoon to discuss ways to make next year's FD effort even better. 
 
Oh - one more thing - the Auburn Journal published our club's Field Day marketing writeup on page 2 of their Friday paper. 
 
Maybe some of the pictures that were taken this weekend will make their way to the joint MLDXCC/NCCC meeting coming up next month??
 
See ya then,
 
Jim  -WX6V-
MLDXCC Field Day Coordinator