Field Day 2002

Field Day 2002

By Gregg Wonderly, W5GGW

Well, it’s over! Field Day 2002 was very busy with lots of activities and we made some QSOs to boot!

On Friday afternoon, we were able to get all of the HF equipment that was there set up and working. We had 2 beams, a Gap vertical, a 15m vertical ground plane, and a 40m quad and a 40m trap vertical up and running by the end of the evening. We had a light rain shower in the late afternoon that made things a little muggy. Many of the operators came by for dinner. We had hamburgers and hot dogs courtesy of our awesome food crew headed up by Fred (KB5BQA) and Lurene (KB5BQB) Ockerman! My hat is off to them for taking on this task, and for the folks that helped them out Artie (KD5OIH) and others. Those that stayed the night on Friday night were treated to a beautiful evening. I (W5GGW) started up the TTT net simulcast via ATV and Dan (WG5Z) also took some check-ins and closed the net up. We had a lot of fun and the ATV pictures were really great with the nice direct path to the ATV repeater from the top of Chandler Park.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and were treated to pancakes and bacon, again thanks to the hard work of the Fred, Lurene and the other helping hands. We also had more station/equipment/antenna setup to do for the other stations. We put together a new 4 element 6m Yagi that Dave (KD5OIJ) loaned us. We attached it to the repeater tower and Dan (WG5Z) and Mark (KD5DLL) worked a total of 101 stations on 6m I believe.

About 10 minutes till 18:00 UTC (1:00pm local time), the bands started lighting up with calls of “CQ Field Day”! The race was on!

We had the following stations and operators active:

2M/220/440/Sat ops (KD5NJR Scott and KD5PFF Alex) Sat QSO plus some others

6m phone (WG5Z Dan) 100+ QSOs

10m phone (KD5JGA Eddie assisted by N5PMP Jim) 60+ QSOs

15m phone (AC5WX George and KB5DVQ Lori) 60+ QSOs

20m phone (W5RUF Red) 400+ QSOs

40m phone (W5GGW Gregg) – Get On The Air station 90+ QSOs

40m phone (WN5ZAH Fred) 300+ QSOs

10m/20m PSK (KD5DLL Mark) ???

15m PSK (W5RAY Ray) ???

15m PSK and 40m phone (KD5DLL Mark)

20m PSK (K5RAY Ray)

This allowed us to operate as a 7-alpha station! On Saturday, afternoon, we all rediscovered how these bands interact with transmitters in close proximity and we had to each modify our operating practices to work around problems. The 40 phone and 40m CW stations were at opposite ends of the field from each other. When phone transmissions occurred, CW reception was difficult to impossible. So, I operated the GOTA station in hunt and pounce mode, waiting for moments when the CW station was transmitting to throw out my call. I then kept transmissions to a minimum and managed to keep out of Fred’s QSOs. A few times I called CQ, and Fred came back to talk! I switched back to hunt and pounce and things seemed to work fine.

The GOTA station had 2 unlicensed operators and one Technician operator and used my W5GGW call since the Field Day rules stipulate that it must not use the main call of the other stations (we used W5IAS for the other stations). My two daughters each got to make a handful of contacts and a technician class operator (whose name I don’t have handy) made a handful as well. Since we were interacting with the 40m CW station and could not call CQ, it was difficult to keep the younger kids interested while we looked around for a station we had not worked yet. We logged on paper and recorded about 4 dups, so we did pretty well at remembering whom we had talked to already.

W5RUF experienced, in his experience, the busiest 20m band ever. It was impossible to find a place to park in between all the QRM. Operators were 100khz apart on 40m it seemed too. Red banged away at the band and recorded over 400 QSOs for the 24 hours and enjoyed some eating and socializing as well!

Saturday afternoon, around 3:00pm, we were treated to a light helicopter piloted by Chris (KC5BEJ). Tim (KB5ZVC) installed ATV transmitting equipment on and in the helicopter and then he and Chris set off to provide us a truly beautiful airmobile video transmition. Dan (WG5Z) and Fred (WN5ZAH) also took a turn at being the airmobile cameraman and we got to see a wide range of the greater Tulsa area, live via ATV! I think everyone really enjoyed this and it was a nice break from the initial hours of operating.

At 4:00pm on Saturday, Life Flight and the Berryhill fire department came out to visit us. There was an unfortunate event related to their arrival and the amount of wash off of their landing. Since that machine is so much heavier than Chris’s, the amount of thrust generated during landing causes very large amounts of turbulent wind forces. The Ockerman’s camper awning was caught up in the turbulence and some damage occurred to their TV antenna and the camper. In the future, we all need to try and make sure that we think about these issues. I understand that this happened before a couple of years ago, to another camper. It is hard to remember everything, but maybe we can try and avoid this issue next time.

Fred and Lurene prepared us Tri-Tip beef for dinner! This was a real treat, and I believe that everyone enjoyed it! Lori ran the Saturday night net with ATV simulcast and we all enjoyed that as well.

Dan (WG5Z) did a great job of setting up a tremendous ATV system. He utilized Dave’s (KD5OIH) X10 panning camera to provide a nice view of the activities around the eating area, and he utilized a timed switcher to switch between 3 different sources so that all of the things going on around the eating and socializing area could be viewed via ATV. I hope that everyone watching from afar gives Dan a pat on the back for a fine job!

Saturday night was another nice, pleasant night, and I found it difficult to go to bed because it was so calm and cool. But, I decided to let Fred have 40m CW for the night and I caught some shuteye.

On Sunday Morning, Fred, Lurene and some more helpful folks treated us to biscuits, sausage gravy and scrambled eggs. That was a great treat and got everyone started for the final phases of Field Day 2002!

Everyone buckled down and tried to work all the stations they could. By 17:00 UTC (12:00 noon), things were winding down and there as not much left on the bands that we had not already worked. So, we started cleaning things up and shutting things down. Everything was pretty much cleared out by 2:00pm local time and everyone was ready for some cool and a nap it seemed!

I’d like to thank all of the people that helped me with field day preparations this year and I’d really like to thank all the people that were able to come out and help and participate this year. We have a truly awesome group of people that all help and work well together. All of us have a thing that we can and do do well and that is what makes the club go. Everyone’s contributions are appreciated and everyone should feel particularly proud of the fact that we made it through field day 2002 and had a really good event (except for Fred and Laureen’s camper).

I still need the final numbers from some of the operators and then I’ll be able to get our submission to the ARRL going. If anyone can put TV spots and/or Radio spots into digital format, that will allow us to have evidence for credit towards those points.

Thanks again to everyone that helped make field day a lot of fun for all of us!

Gregg Wonderly – W5GGW

1st Vice President

Field Day 2002

By Scott Haley, KD5NJR

The VHF station was manned by KD5NJR (Scott) KD5NJS (Dan) and KD5PFF (Alex,) Hank and Alex’s family, YL, etc.

Station was an Icom 910H w/ SSB loop and 2m / 440 Yagi, along with verticals for local work. Alex brought along a 220 MHz mobile (FM). Found one contact.

Also, we had a computer and a TH-D7 for packet use.

We mostly got local stations on 2m with the exception of a contact in Kansas and one near at Eufaula Lake.

Satellite work was obscured due to some 440 QRM to the East of the site, but we believe we got one QSO w/ K5OE in Houston via PCSAT.

We plan to go out again for the day and make simplex contacts and ping repeaters sometime soon. Maybe we can approach the club to listen for us, then we can present a directory of some of the more ‘active’ repeaters / simplex users if you’re ever out in that particular neck of the woods.

73s

Scott, KD5NJR

K5TTT Field Day Adventure 2002

Charlie Calhoun, K5TTT

ARRL Section Manager

Oklahoma Section

I was excited and optimistic about this year’s tour of field day sites. I try to rotate between the sites I visit each year, since I can’t cover them all in a single weekend. This year was Western Oklahoma’s turn. I had planned out my trip and it was going to be a long one.

I left Owasso at 6:30am sharp. I knew I was going to have to visit a few sites before field day even started in order to cover what I wanted. I arrived around 8:15 in Midwest City and had a nice visit with the Oklahoma City Autopatch Association and a few members of the Choctaw ARC. Then off to Edmond.

I got to see some familiar faces at the site of the Edmond Amateur Radio Society who had gathered in Fink Park. They were just getting set up but I had a good visit with them. Off to Norman.

There the South Canadian ARC was operating in Reaves Park. They had an excellent location. This was a big park. There were 4 baseball diamonds full of players and spectators not far from where they were set up. There also was a lot of activity going on getting ready for a large company picnic not 100 yards from their location. I’m sure they had tons of visitors. I was also quite impressed with the folks they had invited to their site. They welcomed local city councilmen, the Norman Mayor, Police and Fire Chiefs and the local emergency coordinator. They also had a respectable public information display available to the public. By the time I was leaving Norman I was already about an hour behind schedule and on my way to Lawton.

The weather in Lawton was wonderful and so was the location. The Lawton-Fort Sill ARC had set up on Lake Ellsworth just north of town. There was a good southerly wind and it was quite pleasant. They had their club trailer there and I got a nice tour of that. They’ve invested a lot of time and money into it. Next stop Altus.

The Altus group was located just north of town at a highway rest area by the airport. They also had their club trailer set up and were running PSK31 out of one of the two operating positions in the trailer. After leaving Altus I had the longest leg of the trip.

I had to go all the way up to Woodward to see my friends at the Tri-State Amateur Radio Group site. This group has really been working hard at improving their ARES relationships. They have established a station in the basement of the County Courthouse and are all ready to go. By this time it was after 6pm already and I missed the bar-b-q dinner in Enid, but that was the next stop.

I had a nice visit with our Section Emergency Coordinator, John Turner, KA7GLA and many others at Croslin Park on the north side of Enid. When I left Enid it was dusk but I still had more places to go. Off to Ponca City.

Members of the Kay County ARC were set up at the 5th Street Park. They said they had a good number of visitors earlier in the day. By the time I got there only the hard core operators remained. They had three transmitters running.

Late in the day between stops I was keeping myself occupied along the drive on 6 meters. There was a nice sporadic E opening that started with the 8-9-0 call area. It then opened up to the southeastern seaboard. I worked many stations in FL, NC, SC, DE, VA, MI, IL, OH, MN, and other states from the mobile. Late in the evening it got real short for just a little while. I worked a few stations in STX before it moved west and I worked UT and NV. Ponca City ended up being my last stop.

It was close to 1am by the time I got back into Tulsa. I called on the 146.110 machine and found out that the gates had already been locked or I would have visited TARC’s site, the largest in the state. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I was really getting tired and decided to head back to the QTH. At the end of the trip I had traveled 771 miles and visited 8 field day sites in a little less than 20 hours. It was hard work but I enjoyed every minute of it.

I regret to inform you that I will not be seeking an additional term as your section manager. There were no nominations received by the June deadline. My term ends in October so hopefully we will have a new section manager for you by then. I have enjoyed serving as your section manager and am not opposed to serving again in the future. This next couple of years is going to be very busy for me and I will not be able to devote the time needed to fulfill these duties required to do the job right. The twins, Blake and Brock, are now 4 and they take up a lot of my time. I have a commitment for 2003 that will keep me extremely busy and I’ve served in some leadership capacity for the last 10 years, I’m about to get up a new tower, and I’d like to be able to operate more. I’ll still be around and active, so you’ll still see me and this is a job that I will miss a great deal. I hope you’ve been satisfied with my performance.

73 and GL,

Charlie Calhoun, K5TTT

ARRL Section Manager

Oklahoma Section