TROJAN ARC FIELD DAY 2002
2A KS at the Colby Municipal Airport
Mobile Command Post, 70' tower, trailer tower 70' Tristao 6m yagi & dipole tower trailer tower with TH3 yagi
Fire Dept. 3500 W generator KC0JAO K0FJ N0XJ assess faulty 'new' HD-73 rotator Aha.... removal of 20 years' corrosion does it.
K0QP S&Ping on SSB KB0LGX on the early graveyard shift Hired Gun KC0IWH improves his contesting cw
1150 QSOs is ok, but the eyeball QSOs are even better This is called 'wireless'??
Conditions seemed to favor Field Day participants Another Field Day counted as a success
This was the 3rd year to hold Trojan ARC's 2A KS effort at the Colby airport. We have a shaded awning, yet an open environment, and low electrical noise with some trees and lots of open tower space. New this year was a 70' crankup tower we used for 6m yagi and dipoles. This nearly solved mutual interference problems. The higher 6m antenna seemed like a boon, but with only 2 E clouds favoring us during FD we didn't get a chance at extensive evaluation.
The GOTA station went almost unused by our 'ham retirees', but it was appreciated by one visitor who enjoyed chasing Puerto Rico and working a couple other stations. Our most interesting ham ingenuity episode was the "brand new, 20 year-in-the-box" Alliance HD-73 rotator we got at Dayton. The dual speed rotation was only VERY SLOW. After a few rotations looking for 6m E clouds, the CCW rotation became as advertised, while the CW direction quit. Inspection of the control box innards revealed a highly corroded copper switch actuator -- cleaning it made the system perform as expected.
We had about 1150 QSOs and of course the usual great eyeball QSOs. Our ops and main interests: K0BJ - cw; WA0CAL - refreshments; K0FJ - logging and LAN; KC0HBR - graveyard; KC0IWH - cw; KC0JAO - all aspects; KB0LGX - graveyard; K0MXU - teardown; K0QP - SSB S&P; N0QE - SSB running; N0XJ - setup and repair; N0XNJ - logistics; N0XNO - setup
HIGH winds plagued setup day and all but 4 hours of Field Day. At least that
kept the bugs at bay. CU next year.
Link to ARRL FD 2002 Soapbox comments (search on W0WOB)