ARC minutes 2007-06-23-24 Field Day
From MMAE
On the weekend of June 23 - 24, 2007, the club participated in the ARRL 2007 Field Day. A good time was had by all, and we all learned from the experience.
Since the club has not participated in any contensting in a very long time, we did not expect a high performance rating in this contest. However, all of the goals we set were either met or surpassed, so this was a very successful event for us overall, despite any problems or mistakes that might be listed here.
Contents |
[edit] Equipment used for the contest
[edit] radios
- IC-706
- IC-756 (blown finals?)
- Kenwood TS-2000
[edit] antennas
- Ironhorse on tripod or magmount
- inverted V wire dipole
- B&W folded dipole between palm trees
- Arrow 2m/70cm satellite yagi (with either HT's or ts2000)
[edit] What went wrong and could be improved
This event was very much a learning experience, and we expected it to be. These comments are a summary of ideas collected from everyone who participated.
[edit] Equipment we (almost) didn't bring but needed
- rope!! (or string) (lots) (used about 50ft each for palm trees)
- at least 200ft needed to hang the B&W properly
- dipole also used some rope
- weight for rope (something safe?)
- feed lines
- short rg58/BNC patch for arrow to HT's
- lmr400(PL259?) for any feed longer than 10ft
- ladder line? do we have any radios or antennas that can take ladder line?
- cigarette lighter adapter (for cell phone chargers, etc)
- tape measure
[edit] Items that would have made things more comfortable
- tent?
- fan for each workstation (box fan?)
- possibly 12VDC computer fans for completely remote places
- comfortable chairs
- bug repellant spray
- suntan lotion
- other jumpkit items?
- different location
- too many bugs
- poor geometry with trees
[edit] food improvements
- bigger cooler / more ice
- separate cooler for meats
- better (midnight) snacks
- more soda -- cafeine to last the night, energy drinks
- Caffeinated soap
- Buy food before arrival
[edit] Things we should have prepared better
- select a logging program and train with it
- have a net or meeting ahead of time and plan exactly which rules to take advantage of
- cover rules that must be followed
- select station class carefully
- plan to have a backup radio
- plan specialty stations (amsat, psk? GOTA) which are not counted in the class rating
- welcome station
- save ARRL literature
- sign in sheet for guests
- invite guests (including elected official, newspaper)
- reserve Lake Claire pavilion #2 earlier to prevent overbooking
- include request to disable water sprinklers near pav#2 in the morning (SGA or physical plant? 5223)
- look for synergistic co-reservations?
- satellite communications
- pick satellite passes ahead of time and have all frequency data available offline
- how to communicate with satellite at HF frequencies? (what antenna?)
- practice satellite contacts
- test radios in advance?
- run generator continuously and bring more batteries to allow rotation
- schedule operator shifts to prevent fatigue
- attempt to cover with two operators per station
[edit] Things we should buy, make, or acquire
- better collection of adapters (BNC PL259/so239 N) (two of each gender?)
- logging program (need to survey what is available)
- should support coordination and backup via local network (mirroring, not central server if possible)
- try fdlog (python, OSS)
- cigarette adapter for charging cell phones or other accesories from battery and/or generator
- sturdy reusable cable ties for all cables and feedlines
[edit] Aftermath
After cleanup, kg4ydw and ki4ujg went to visit the LMARS field day site to gawk at their huge antennas.
[edit] Event statistics summary and scoring
KI4UJG volunteered to compile the field day data for submission, which will be summarized here eventually.
?? contacts were made including ?? states (list?). (Break down by band?) The following special bonuses were achived:
| bonus type | points |
|---|---|
| Class | 3A (2A?) |
| GOTA station: | N/A |
| Extra VHF station | N/A |
| Power multiplier | 2 |
| 100% emergency power | |
| Media publicity | not yet? |
| Public location | 100 |
| Public information table | no |
| Satellite QSO | tried, oh well |
| Alternate power | maybe next year, call FSEC |
| W1AW Bulletin | tried, accuracy? |
| non-traditional demonstration | no |
| elected official | no |
| ARES served agency visit | he wasn't invited, can't claim credit |
| web form submission bonus | (50 maybe) |
| youth bonus | (0?) |
| Contacts | 83 |
We successfully tracked 3 satellites, but two were single sideband and manual doppler tracking, while possible, was not possible to keep stable long enough for a QSO at such a narrow band. The third bird had an FM repeater, but we didn't have the codes to activate it, and also were not able to get a clear signal from it for some reason. With tracking software to automatically adjust the radio frequency, SSB should relatively be easy. Not sure why the FM bird was so difficult--perhaps a different radio would help, or better settings and better research.
Since this was our first field day, we did not follow the rules as closely as we should have, and did not turn in the scores on time. If we had, the score would have been at least 616, possibly a bit higher.
[edit] Unreasonable goals to strive for next year
Some things we did right, or didn't need to try, but still could be yet better next year.
- play with more antenna designs
- try putting an antenna in the lake?
- larger antennas
- loop / quad
- spider style dipole cluster (several alternate directions)
- design an antenna (long wire?) to stretch between the furthest trees
- push up poles
- gigahertz equipment
- long distance wifi internet link for satellite data, etc.
- computerized logbook system, including shared data on a shared network
