It’s like the opposite ends of the spectrum, really; 10 years ago I was doing Field Day with a big club; 8 or 10 stations, each in their own tent, running from a big generator set and operating the full 24 hours … a couple of times I was even the chair, and wore my Gene Kranz white satin vest for the occasion … and today, single op, 10 watts, battery powered. No tent. No vest. Months of arranging and planning vs. radio bag’s already in the car, where do I want to go?
I spent the last few weeks idly speculating about a world of variations I could make to my typically minimalist plans, but in the end they stayed speculative, and idle.
It was pretty hot by noon on Saturday, so I had plenty of cold liquids as I set out. First stop, Kwik-Trip, for coffee, while still internally debating where to go. In the end, I chose Wildcat Mountain over the possible alternatives, just for the sense of comforting familiarity .
I arrived a few minutes before 1:00 and began to set up. About 10 minutes later I turned on the X6100 and found the expected; a crowded waterfall and a Babel of voices. Started tuning around. Loud stations running pileups, not-so-loud ones CQing, everyone QRMing someone else … and I dive into the chaos.
It seems to take 20 minutes or so to catch a gap in a pileup and complete an exchange. My total for the day? Seven.
I made an early start the next day (while it was still cool) and got set up in a shady spot. The band seemed less crowded. The loud stations were still running pileups, some of them were still on almost the same frequency they were on yesterday. There were stations CQing without pileups who heard me on the first or second call, what a difference! By the time I sweated through my t-shirt (still in the shade!) I had made 13 contacts and was ready to call it a successful Field Day.
Haven’t sent my log in to ARRL yet, but I sent Sunday’s log to POTA because it qualifies as an activation.
Word press tells me: “374 words, 2 minutes read time. Last edited 16 days ago.”
Sounds to me like “about time to wrap this up and click the “publish” button”.
I still haven’t gotten around to doing my log submission to ARRL, either; I need to do that pretty soon if I’m going to do it at all, because entries close on the 29th, 8 days from today.
Thank you for visiting driftlessqrp!
Updated, July 22nd: Finished hand-assembling a cabrillo log file and submitted my entry via the ARRL web app; my apparent score, 290.
Another thing I forgot yesterday: a shout-out to Ben and his friends, who were curious about ham radio, and understood my explanations about how all this RF stuff works! Hope you get licensed someday, and we meet up on the air!