Fredericksburg, Texas
K5PA AD5HP
K5PA, ARRL Field Day 2011
Hillside Cabin
Morse twin paddle used in operating event (Bencher)
The Hill Country Mountain Toppers Association (HCMTA) operated West of Fredericksburg, TX this Field Day 2011. This was the annual ARRL Field Day event. We used the call sign, K5PA. They setup and operated emergency communications equipment, portable antennas, and made many contacts with other stations throughout the USA.
The primary objectives are to hone skills to meet the challenges of emergency preparedness and to test our abilities using Amateur Radio. Each Field Day we seem to ask ourselves the recurring question, "What did we forget to bring this year?"
Antenna Installation
This is the Buddipole vertical antenna made specifically for 20 meters. The antenna consists of the following parts (Buddipole part numbers shown in parenthesis).
1) Buddipole tripod mount (BPT),
2) Buddipole 16 foot mast (BML),
3) VersaTee interface to antenna element where guys attach (VTE),
4) 3 sections of 24" mast (XAA) plus the long telescopic whips (black) vertical fully extended (LTW),
5) 2 counterpoise guy wires cut to 16.5 feet and a third guy made from Dacron rope.
The Ops
Here are the two ops at the radio position.
Caption: OM with the XYL
The final results (Claimed Score = 350) for Field Day are summarized as follows:
Station Pre-Planning
Planning for this year's event started in April as a two operator, one radio station. The OM, is Gene (K5PA), and his XYL, Carolyn (AD5HP), plan on setting up an ICOM-756PRO-III from the Hillside Cabin.
Our primary operating mode technique was voice SSB using the contest mode Search & Pounce (S&P). We listened on SSB frequencies on 15 M, 20 M and 40 M primarily trying to work as many stations that can hear us. At times, I broke out my trusted Morse twin paddle and operated CW.
The station logged all contacts using Writelog. Writelog has been used in most of our Field Day activities making it very simple to input QSO's and check for duplicates. It also provides continual scoring. We plan to upload our scores after the weekend into ARRL webserver URL setup for this purpose.
Planned antennas include the 40M/20M Antenna Duel. An equipment block diagram is shown below that shows all interconnections between equipment. The 40 M antenna actually was changed from the vertical (using a Buddipole coil) to a straight dipole using the guy wires as the antenna elements. With the 40 M antenna placed so close to the Earth, this antenna was definitely a cloud warmer and worked nicely for Texas stateside contacts during the day due to the NVIS antenna radiation.
Field Day 2011 was a lot of fun. We just about worked everyone we could hear.
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