[SECC] Field Day Experience - Response to WW4LL's Request

[John Laney]

I think this was my 60th Field Day. Started in 1955, so 2014 should be 
#60.  Most years when the Columbus Amateur Radio Club (was W4NGS, now is 
W4CVY) has participated, I have been with them.  One year, I worked a 
few FD stations when I was HL9KQ in Korea while in the Army.  Once when 
the CARC wasn't participating, I was with the Warner Robins group as 
KN4A, once with the Thomasville Club's QRP battery effort as W4UCJ, and 
once we tried a 2C (mobile on two sailboats in the Gulf) as KR4M.  One 
year while in high school, I went with the Columbus High School group as 
W4KLN (the club call now is W4CHS).  One year, when I was at Mercer in 
Macon, I went with the Middle GA club as K4VEW.  (N4PN, who was then 
W4YWX, was a part of that effort too--we had a location in the koalin 
mud near Jeffersonville and were rained out when puddling water took out 
all our rigs and our generator.)

This year, we were in 4A, with one CW station and three SSB stations.  I 
know they tried to make a satellite QSO, but don't know if they were 
successful.  K8LBQ and I were the CW ops.  I was there for the whole 24 
hours.  CW station was in a (usually) air conditioned communications van 
that belongs to N4DTV.  It is the one that we ran Ala QSO Party in this 
year.  Used an 88 ft center fed zepp on all bands.  KU8E built the zepp 
for FD a few years ago.  The van has a 48 foot fiberglass pole that 
collapses into its roof.  We pulled that up 46 feet and attached the 
center of the zepp to it.  Pine trees held up the ends and we maneuvered 
the van until the pole was straight up and down.  The zepp has never 
worked better.

On CW, we used my IC756Pro.  We had a screwdriver tuned for six M on the 
second antenna input.  6M was dead for most of the contest. We heard 
only two stations on six:  HI3TEJ and HI8LAM. They weren't in FD, but we 
called them both and did QSO TEJ.

K8LBQ wasn't familiar with using a keyboard and logging QSOs real time, 
so we worked on that a lot.  He ran at about 20 WPM and when I was on 
the rig, I ran at about 24 WPM. Can't go too fast in FD or you won't 
make too many QSOs.

We had CW QSOs on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, and 6.  On Sunday morning, we were 
having Es on 15 and 10M all over.  Unfortunately, there were only a few 
stations on 10 CW. This year I did succeed in getting one of the SSB 
stations to go to 10M when it opened.  Last year, they resisted my 
suggestions.

We did have a GOTA station signing W4CHS and I understand they made some 
QSOs.  We were located at Flat Rock Park in Columbus, a popular jogging 
and picnicking spot and had a number of visitors.

We had pre-FD publicity in our local daily newspaper and TV coverage 
from WTVM, the ABC-TV affiliate in Columbus.  We had some new hams 
(including one who is learning CW and using a hand key) visit and also a 
ham from Eufaula drove up to visit.

The summary window on N1MM on my computer (built in with two monitors in 
the van) was incomplete.  It listed QSOs 80CW and SSB through 10 CW, but 
left off 10 SSB and 6M and had no totals.  I haven't heard from K4ETY 
who is to send in the entry, but my guess is about 1200 or 1300 QSOs 
with maybe 800 of them on CW.

The IT guys networked 4 computers on N1MM with some kind of a wireless 
connection and it worked great. This was their first or maybe second 
experience, I think, with N1MM.

We ate well with hamburgers and hot dogs.  All in all, a good 
experience.  We could do better, of course, if all stations were manned 
all the time, but that is too much to hope for without a lot of die-hard 
contesters to operate them.

73, John, K4BAI.