Field day for 2007 was with N4YDU and the NC Contesters group, operating the special event station N4Q. We were operating from a fire tower near Lousiburg, NC.
Our group was reduced to five from those originally interested in coming out. We ran the operation as 2A. A general description of the operation is on the N4Q webpage.
BTW–QSL for N4Q is via SASE to W4KAZ.
For my own part, I was glad to have K4CZ, Barry, and K9EZ, Kent join us this year. Kent is a fine operator. Barry is a better CW operator than I am, and he was out for his first full-out field day. I hope they enjoyed being there as much as we enjoyed having them join us.
It’s going to be a good idea for us to recruit additional operators as the sunspot cycle moves back into better propagation conditions. This will allow us to cover the bands better by operating 3A or 4A.
This year, our original plan was to use the fire tower as the support for most of the antennas. After a scouting trip to the site on Friday afternoon(N4PY, N4YDU and W4KAZ) we reconsidered. The site had a lot of tall and well spaced pine trees that allowed us to spread out quite a bit.
On Saturday, we started off with Nate shooting a couple of lines for 40 meter dipoles. We were able to string two dipoles at right angles using the trees over and along the sites driveway. Nate and I then tried to install a 20m dipole of tubing on the side of the tower. This antenna would not load properly so close to the tower. We had already used up a lot of time, so we went to ‘plan B’. Nate quickly rigged a 20m wire dipole. We were able to pull this far enough away from the tower to get an acceptable match(we thought).
The 80 meter pull rope had also been nstalled, so N4PY and K4CZ were rigging the 80 meter dipole.
Time was growing short, and the stations were still not assembled. K9EZ had a late start, then got caught in road construction on the way to the site. As luck would have it, he arrived just as K4CZ and I were assembling the first screen tent. K9EZ had brought along his pop-up camper, which turned out to be a luxury accommodation compared to the screen tent.
Right down to the wire, we had the 40/15 station assembled in the pop-up, with N4PY’s Orion. Nice radio! But we discovered at the last minute the computer keying cable we had for the 80/20 station needed an adapter for use with N4PY’s Omni VII. Another nice radio!
(Thanks to N4PY for generously allowing us to use these radios. I had fun experimenting.)
Rather than let N4PY cut my cable, I rummaged through the parts bin and was finally able to cobble together a cable. Time: 18:15Z. Yikes!
Unfortunately, N4YDU had to leave for several hours just as we were going live. N4PY(I think) began on 20 meters CW,and I tried to get a run started on 40 meters CW. Off we went!
I was able to run stations at 20wpm, although my copy was not perfect. I think I got the exchanges–I know I asked for a lot of fills. Barry was being cautious, and second chairing, although I TRIED to throw him to the wolves.
Oh–I didn’t mention our lunch break–we didn’t have one!
It worked out that N4PY and K9EZ pretty much operated the 80/20 station, while K4CZ, myself, and N4YDU operated 40 meters. Nate actually worked a couple hundred SSB Q’s when the CW rates slowed. I actually did not work a single SSB QSO the whole time.
Sleep was difficult. I managed to snag a few hours in the wee hours. Kent was an ironman on 80 meters. It sounded like he enjoyed it using that nice tall dipole. I was able to close out 80 meters as the sun was coming up, and shifted over to 20 meters when I was able. The north-south 20m dipole produced many of the early morning Qso’s to NFL,SFL, AL, GA, & MS, as well as a few to the northeast.
I pulled my last shift on 40m in the mid to late morning. Barry worked to squeeze a few last Q’s out of 40m, then Nate closed that station out trying to make a few 15m QSO’s.
(Estimated score–not yet reviewed by N4YDU)
ARRL FIELD DAY -- 2007 Call: N4Q Category: Multi Multi Power: Low Power Band: All Band Mode: Mixed Mode Section: NC BAND CW QSO CW QSO PTS SSB QSO SSB QSO PTS 160 0 0 0 0 80 471 1884 0 0 40 671 2684 256 512 20 606 2424 2 4 15 61 244 26 52 10 0 0 0 0 50 0 0 0 0 144 0 0 0 0 222 0 0 0 0 432 0 0 0 0 1.2 0 0 0 0 2.3 0 0 0 0 3.4 0 0 0 0 -------------------------------------------- 1809 + 284 = 2093 Total QSO (7236 CW QSO PTS + 568 SSB QSO PTS) + 400 BONUS = 8,204
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