ARRL FIELD DAY
Call used: N4BP Location: SFL
Category: Multi Operator Mode: ALL Power: 5W
Callsign of Operator: N4BP & K4PG
If multi-operator, show calls of all operators and loggers: N4BP & K4PG
______________________________________________________________________
Exchanged Information: N4BP 1B SFL
Hours of Operation: 23:57
CW CW SSB SSB FSK FSK
band QSOs pts QSOs pts QSOs pts
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
160 0 0 0 0 0 0
80 0 0 0 0 0 0
40 162 1620 0 0 0 0
20 295 2950 0 0 0 0
15 295 2950 25 125 0 0
RS13 1 10 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 21 105 0 0
50 0 0 0 0 0 0
144 0 0 0 0 0 0
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
TOTAL 753 7530 46 230 0 0 SCORE: 7,760
Bonus Points: 800
===================
Final SCORE: 8,560
Club or Team Name: Guano Reef Bashful Perverts
Comments: The entire weekend went pretty much as planned, which was good
and bad. The station went together easily, there were no equipment break
downs, the weather held, the air mattress held, the bugs were tolerable.
But, where last year we ended in a tie for first place for all single-
transmitter stations, this year the best we can hope for is second place.
Congrats to the Tampa Amateur Radio Club organized by W4ZW for a terrific
showing from W4AC! Last time I give my secrets away. :-)
We began setup at about 1600Z, therefore limiting our op time to 24 hours.
First, the trusty old "ugly vertical" went up with my usual dive into the
Gulf to secure the offshore nylon guy to an underwater rock. This year, we
put up a DK9SQ 33 foot fiberglass mast and used it to support a 40 Meter
dipole. This netted us MANY more Q's on 40M than last year with only the
vertical. We used my TS-130V for all but one QSO. The new IC-706MKII in
a mobile setup with Hustler and multiple resonators netted us one RS13
satellite QSO during the last five minutes of its last available pass!
The Kenwood and 486 notebook computer running the NA logging software were
powered by a 110 A/H deep cycle marine battery which was previously charged
from a two amp solar panel. The battery went the full 24 hours and still
seemed to have plenty of juice left.
Kevin kicked it off on 15 CW while I put up the 40M dipole. Throughout the
event, we both felt that we were doing considerably better than last year.
I'd like to think that re-doing the radials for the vertical and adding the
40M dipole made the difference, but more likely the improved conditions were
entirely responsible for our 150 QSO improvement over last year.
We had a K10 PIC keyer and NorCal paddle set up for the public and several
visitors got a kick out of sending their own CW. An Italian couple stopped
by and understood "Morse" and "SOS", but otherwise we had a difficult time
communicating. Speaking of visitors, a couple of strange coincidences took
us by (pleasant) surprise. Jim Anderson, co-worker of Grant, N4GM happened
to be camping at the same KOA. I had tried to coax Grant into joining us
earlier in the week. So, we sat Jim down at the operating position on Sunday
afternoon to fill in for Grant. Also, two of my good friend, WA4YLD's grand-
sons stopped by and started asking if we knew this ham and that ham, whom of
course we did. The two boys had started studying for ham tickets, but got
sidetracked by other studies before they were able to get licenses.
I made one error in operating that could well have made the difference between
a first and second place showing. I found that coiled cord thingee with the
cooling fins on the front and started talking at it. People started talking
back to me and I ended up logging about 50 QSO's. After my second phone
session during the last hour, Kevin got back on CW and pushed the NA rate meter
to over 100/hour! Next time I'll leave the mic at home!
All in all, a quite successful outing. We had some light rain and almost
constant overcast - a blessing since it kept us from roasting. Mosquitos were
occassional visitors, but a minor annoyance. We completed breakdown of the
station within 30 minutes after our 24 hour period ended and we hit the road.
We made our usual "victory celebration" stop at the Dairy Queen on Key Largo
and then headed for our respective homes.
73,
,'' '',
Bob Patten, N4BP ( 0 0 ) Plantation, FL
________________________________oOOo-(_)-oOO___________________________________
E-Mail: n4bp@bc.seflin.org
Web Page: http://wg104a.wh.uni-stuttgart.de/~n4bp
Brass Pounder BBS: (954) 472-7715
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