Field Day 2007 How was it ?

[AC0RV]

Whew and WOW Field Day 2007 is over. I personally had a great time meeting with some of the other Hams in the community. Seeing the excitement of the First HF Contact on the faces of the new General Class hams as well as the others.

Our group made over 300 contact. Several from CT, IA, IL MI, MN.NM The Carolinas, The Virginas, Ga, AL, La,TX,VT,NY MDC, and the a like.

So will you please share your experineces with field Day 07.

 

[KC9LDB]

It being my first one, I thought it was great!! No one heard me cause my HF rig is somewhat ghetto but the club I was with had their gear out (W9DUP). It was a totally good time! I dont know what the club got but our CW made over 300 contacts also.

 

[LouisvilleScanMan]

This was my first field day as a licensed ham.I spent it with a buddy at Pioneer Village,KY with the Bullitt Amateur Radio Society aka KY4KY.They let me make some contacts on 40 and 80 meter phone as well as 20 and 40 meter PSK 31.One of the club members brought out the Red Cross' emergency communications response vehicle and gave an in depth tour to a couple others and myself.

And to top it all off I got to met in person about 3/4 of the people that I know on the radio so all and all it was a great field day except for the part where a severe thunderstorm came along and drenched the site and blew one of the tents over onto someone but no injuries and no equipment damaged and after the storm passed we helped them set up again and the fun continued into the night and morning.Can't wait til next year and maybe by then I'll have my general ticket and a HF setup of my own.

73's to all

 

[WisconsinRailfan]

Good Day Folks!

I went to my first field day too, in central Ohio (C.R.E.S). I had a blast,
when I first arrived, I help set-up a giant loop antenna. Everyone
there was very helpful, answering all my "basic" questions, I was even
able to get-on-the-air for the first time. I took my Tech and General
last week, but I am still not listed. We had a satellite tracking
antenna setup, talk about amazing. I was also amazed by the folks
doing morse code. all in all it was a great day.. and has they say, I
was bitten by the bug!

 

[trace1]

Our Field Day was great!!!

The Calhoun County Amateur Radio Association, the Calhoun County ARES/RACES Group and the Coosa Valley Ham Radio Association combined their efforts for this event and it was held at Cheaha Lake at Cheaha State Park on Mt. Cheaha (highest point in Alabama).

We had a Calhoun County Civil Defense vehicle on display, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security Region 7 Interoperable Communications Vehicle, and from Birmingham’s ABC 33/40 TV one of the station’s StormChaser vehicles along with Brian Peters a very knowledgeable and very friendly meteorologist who is also a HAM radio operator.

There were several different radios set up on different bands and all, one had PSK31, one had 10 meters, and I really don’t remember the others that were in use. This was my second Field Day and I enjoyed it more this time than before (not saying that I didn’t enjoy my first one though). My 8 year old son was just so eager to get on the radio and he was able to make 2 contacts and that is what I enjoyed the most, seeing him get so excited. Who knows it just may have been one of you out there that he talked to, we were using the club’s callsign of WB4GNA 4 Alpha Alabama. I don’t have the official total count but we had at least 50 participants show up for all the fun.

I have been a Technician class for just over a year now and I do plan on upgrading. Maybe I’ll wait until my older son gets a little more mature and he’s ready to take his test and we’ll both go for our General at the same time, huh?

 

[elk2370bruce]

This was also my first field day since upgrading and had the opportunity to gain some experience with the slightly used (but not abused) ICOM 756 PRO II that I picked up at our Club's Hamfest last week. Did more listening than talking to learn survival skills in the 20 meter "meat grinder". Got lots of help along the way from the "big guns" who not only made contacts but helped us newbies. Lots of fun and really super people.

 

[ve3zo]

Field Day 2007 went vey well for my club we operated 7A and our most successful station was the 40m SSB group with over 800 contacts. We operated on the property of the Tecumseh Fire Department which was nice because we had 24 hour use of the facilities.
The logs are not compiled yet so I do not know our final score, but that doesn't matter because everyone had fun.

Chris
VE3CTP

 

[VA3QRM]

Field Day 2007 went vey well for my club we operated 7A and our most successful station was the 40m SSB group with over 800 contacts. We operated on the property of the Tecumseh Fire Department which was nice because we had 24 hour use of the facilities.
The logs are not compiled yet so I do not know our final score, but that doesn't matter because everyone had fun.

Chris
VE3CTP

Thanks for your and Ed's efforts again this year. Kind of a crap shoot with 6 and 10 meters, didn't pan out big time, but we had fun. Loved the 6 meters aero-mobile contact.
73 VA3QRM

 

[kb2vxa]

Field Day is great fun, sort of like a Boy Scout camporee with radios and the weirdest antenna lash ups one can imagine and a few you can't. The contest atmosphere is a good test of operating skills and dirty tricks, like working DX with a vengeance. My favorite is the 80M overnight trip, mostly tripping from exhaustion. It gets wild with everybody on the air acting like they're punch drunk and good operating practice goes out the window. It becomes loosely organized chaos and a whole lot more fun when you have to dig for contacts amid the jokes and funny callsign phonetics.

Then there's the food, GLORIOUS FOOD! After stuffing myself to the point of near bursting it's off to the little green pavilion and a breath of fresh air. Drinking coffee all day and peeing all night just adds to the excitement and a better ground counterpoise, that's essential for putting out a good signal on 80M just to let you know.

The next morning finds me passed out behind a tent, you guys break it down cuz I put it up, just tie me to the tail gate so I don't fall off on the way home. You new to the game soon will learn what Field Day is all about, there's more to it than talking on a radio, it's an ADVENTURE INTO MADNESS and some of you will never return from the asylum, I haven't.

 

[AC0RV]

For those who worked W2AGR you may have worked me. I was 10,40,20 and some 80 . We used the callsign previously metnion. Our class was 2A Mo.


Thanks for the contact.

 

[elk2370bruce]

Then there's the food, GLORIOUS FOOD! After stuffing myself to the point of near bursting it's off to the little green pavilion and a breath of fresh air. Drinking coffee all day and peeing all night just adds to the excitement and a better ground counterpoise, that's essential for putting out a good signal on 80M just to let you know.

Gee, that sounds like the hunter's pledge: "Drink all night... Pistol Dawn." Better than a fifty pound bag of rock salt for ionic counterpoise (and biodegradable too).

 

[K9GTJ]

Pardon my slow reply but here are some photos...

http://www.ap1.net/fieldday2007/

 

[k9rzz]

7A .... wow.

The most I ever participated in was 3A.

Field Day is fun. I missed it this year, hopefully next year I'll be out somewhere. Kind of like going on a mini DXpedition!

(More cool Scarborough Reef pics here: http://www.scarboroughreef.com/srphotos.html

 

[KB8UYC]

I just seen this post.....

We had a blast....I learned a lot. We operated 4E and logged over 700 contacts.......not bad for the first year of field day!!!

I hope next year is a WHOLE lot better and I will have to try something new to keep me up really late.....

 

[kc4jgc]

FD at W4NPS

For the second year I participated with the Radio Amateur Society of Norfolk. This was the second year for this small club which started up in 2005. Previous years I'd been with the Virginia Beach ARC, 4 years of which I was novice/tech station captain. (2003 I participated with thanks to the gang at WC8OH near Dayton OH). We operated 3A but didn't have all 3 stations on the air at the same time while I was there. I operated phone on 40m and CW on 40m & 80m. Had a great time. My only complaint this year was that there were A LOT of high speed cw operators in the novice/tech portions of those bands. Needed to ask several stations to QRS (many thanks to the op at W1AW who sent "RRR" before I could finish sending "PSE QRS" and proceeded at my sending speed of 10 wpm.), even when I was station calling CQ. Seems that even though there is no longer the cw requirement, many cw ops apparently thought there wouldn't be many slow speed operators. I didn't have nearly as many CW contacts this year (40 as compared to 150 last year). I ran the rig for about 8 hours, from 4pm-midmight ET.