I was exhausted after I got home and was very busy at work all week and after I got home so it’s a bit delayed, but here’s my summary of Field Day.

I operate Field Day with the Bergen Amateur Radio Association club which operates as K2BAR.  We operate from the local county EOC center which isn’t far from where I live. We setup in the parking lots that surround the building. This year we operated as a 4F station with the following:

20m CW station with a tribander on the roof of the building
GOTA station that was using a multiband dipole
80m SSB/CW station with an 80m loop around the parking lot
40m SSB/CW station with a 40m dipole or double zepp
20m/15m/10m SSB station with a tribander on a tower
6m station with a 6m yagi on a tower

Things got started around 8am when some folks met at the EOC to get started and others met where we store our equipment. We had all the equipment loaded into multiple vehicles and on the way to the site within the hour. This year we were assembling just 1 tower for the 6m beam and the tribander was going on a tower loaned by the county police. The tower is a powered retractable and tilting tower that is on a trailer. It worked exceptionally well for the tribander.

While folks were getting the wire antennas and antennas for the tower set up, I went around the other side of the building to help with the tribander that was to be used on the 20m CW station. What transpired wore me out. They wanted to lift the assembled tribander and secure it to the EOC tower. I must have climbed up/down that tower 4 times. With trees in the way we ran into issues getting it up where we wanted, so it was disassembled and sent up in pieces. We assembled it on the roof of the facility and then tried to lift secure it to the tower. We again ran into issues with the branches as we tried to hoist it up. In the end, we left it on the roof (2+ stories above the ground) pointed due west. We’re now exhausted.

By the time we finished with the 20m CW antenna, the rest of the wire antennas and beams were up and the stations were getting setup. We had some lunch and finished up getting the stations setup for operating. The club uses CT for logging which I don’t like but it is what they are comfortable with so we have laptops at each of the stations. We spent the day operating and I spent all my time at the 40m SSB or 20/15m SSB stations with some 6m thrown in when I wanted to relax since there wasn’t much action there.

Once it started to get darker and the lights kicked on, we had a big problem! It turns out there is one large light that is having an issue staying on and when it is resetting and in the process of coming back on, we have a S9 noise level on a few of the stations.  Once the light came on, the noise stopped. Unfortunately, the cycle was 10 mins of noise and 5 mins of no noise before it started again. Once that noise kicked in, it was hard work pulling signals out and then like magic, when it stopped, it was shooting fish in a barrel.

In the evening I had the pleasure of meeting N2WKS who is a local operator but not a member of the club. Zev is an experienced contester with a great ear and it was a joy to watch him work the pileups. Zev stayed around into the wee hours of the morning. I took a nap in my car from 3am to 6am. When I woke up it was light out and the noise was gone.

I spent the rest of Sunday operating 20m and a little 6m before we shut down things to tear down. I headed back over to the other side of the building, climbed the tower, dismantled the tri-bander which was on the roof and lowered the parts down to the ground. Then I came down the tower and helped with breaking down the rest of the site. By 4pm Sunday we were done unloading all the equipment and I was heading home.

Field Day is a blast and I really enjoy but it sure is a workout, especially when you stay and operate the entire time after spending a few hours setting things up. But with it being so tiring, I absolutely can’t wait again until next year. My goal next year is to have the 20m/15m station outdo the number of QSOs the 40m station makes.  I think we could have done it this year if the noise didn’t smack us down all night on 20m while the 40m station wasn’t impacted.

Here’s the score summary:

73,
K2DSL