The turnout was small but the ten MCAR members who turned out and one guest operator along with two young aspiring hams made the MCAR Field Day 2009 a major success!
The WM3L GOTA station worked well inside the County tent that was provided which included air conditioning. However, due to the great weather and nice temperatures over the weekend the air conditioning was not used. Steve N3LJZ brought out his grille and cooked up hot dogs and hamburgers for the group as well as bringing his portable HF station including an Icom IC-706 which was used with a 40 meter inverted V that Doug constructed as well as with the tri band beam that was donated for use by Griff NE3I. Lou K3EMG's son Chris as well as Steve N3LJZ's son Owen both enjoyed some operating time on VHF with the eleven element 2 meter yagi as well as HF making contacts on Saturday afternoon. There were a total of 102 contacts on the GOTA station with the majority on 40 meters. The longest contact was to S58N in Slovenia around midnight with just 100 watts from the IC-706 and that homemade 40 meter dipole while WM3L was working.
Inside the RACES room is where the two HF stations were positioned and working most of the time during the entire event. NN3C Kurt was a guest operator who specializes in CW and he worked 20 meter CW from the beam on top the tower for all of Saturday until nearly midnight making well over 400 QSOs along the way. Bill WM3L worked on the second HF position on 15 and 80 meter phone using the tri-band beam and 80 meter dipole during the day into the early evening and then turned it over to Rich WA3WLH who worked 80 meter CW. Overnight Rich moved on to the primary HF position to continue 20 meter CW until Doug arrived at 6AM while Mark KB3HIY worked 80 and 40 meter phone alternating with the dipoles.
At 6AM Sunday Doug W3CF returned after leaving late Saturday afternoon to work 20 meter phone. Doug even worked a VK station from Australia in the early morning hours! Bill WM3L took over for Doug around 9AM and ran until close to noon. Here is a summary of the highest QSO rates during the entire event which occured on Sunday morning sent from Doug W3CF:
AA3E Max Rates: 2009-06-28 1335Z - 6.0 per minute (1 minute(s)), 360 per hour by W3CF 2009-06-28 1335Z - 3.9 per minute (10 minute(s)), 234 per hour by WM3L 2009-06-28 1417Z - 3.0 per minute (60 minute(s)), 179 per hour by W3CF 20 meters was the band of choice on Sunday and the pileups were huge! Over 850 QSOs were made from the 6AM-4:30PM Sunday time frame alone on 20 meter SSB! In the afternoon Lou K3EMG also worked on the "big station" working the pileups as well! In all it was a great event! Two perspective hams were given a glimpse of what they can do if they study hard for their license. With a small turnout of hardy operators we will have a higher score this year then we did in 2008! The final numbers: Category: 2F Section: EPA AA3E 1911 QSOs for 5,038 points. WM3L GOTA station 102 QSOs for 238 points. Total effort: 2,013 QSOs for 5,276 point before bonus points are tabulated! 2008 score with bonus points: 5,676. This was a tremendous effort considering the band conditions and the small turnout. The event was also logged using Knowledge Center so those who have access can go online and check out the log of events. I want to thank the following who participated in this great effort: W3CF Doug, K3EMG Lou and his son Chris, Rich WA3WLH, Mark KB3HIY, Kurt NN3C, Steve N3LJZ and his son Owen, Bob W3ZQN, Tom W3CQC, Frank WD0ESL, Bob NE3I.
73, Bill Henderson WM3L Emergency Coordinator/Radio Officer Montgomery County, PA ARES/RACES
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The MCAR Dashboard > Team Announcements >
A Great Field Day 2009 at AA3E!posted Jun 27, 2009 10:24 AM by Bill Henderson [ updated Jun 29, 2009 8:36 AM ] |