Field Day Class D question

1D = "Station of the damned" (but enjoying air conditioning and a clean restroom!).

 

Ugh. I packed my 817, SOTA tuner and wire, backpacking chair, and hiked a mile into the woods to a flat spot on a bluff overlooking a small regional river (named as a creek, but I've seen smaller rivers). Got set up and on 20 meter only to be blown off the airwaves by wall-to-wall D stations with big antennas on towers (heard one station mention turning his antenna in the direction of the station he was doing the exchange with). Nobody wants to talk to a QRP B-station when there are so many big guns to talk to.

At least it was a nice day for a walk in the woods. I gave up after a couple hours, dropped my radio junk off at the car, grabbed my fly rod, and went fishing for a bit.

Chris

 

I can relate. About four or five years ago, my wife planned a camping trip at a remote off-the-grid forest service campground north of Lake Tahoe for Field Day weekend. I brought my KX3, a battery, and a Buddipole. I set up about an hour before the official start, and made two or three SSB contacts in ten minutes as I was testing things out. But as soon as the event started, I was covered up by others, and it was very frustrating. It was interesting being in such a remote, quiet location -- I could hear stations all over. Many times, I could hear both sides of an attempted QSO clearly when the two parties couldn't hear each other very well. But my low power was no match for the Field Day shouting match. Furthermore, at the time, I wasn't capable of using CW, so I was limited to SSB only. I made something like five contacts during the total event. But it was a beautiful place, and an enlightening learning experience.

Today, I've set up the KX3 with a 50W amplifier and the Buddipole in the back yard, again using portable power. I'm 1E, because the ARRL rules say a station in your backyard can't be 1B, but I'm not using any facilities of the house except when I take a break away from the radio. I can't hear nearly as well in my suburban neighborhood as I could in the remote Sierra Nevada, but nevertheless, 50W of CW is making S&P contacts much more reliably than 10-ish watts of SSB.

 

So, to circle back around, had a fairly successful time.....263 contacts, mostly on 10 meter phone....parked and barked for a few hours on 10 and noticed the DX spots lit up, lol
They throw Delawhere out there, pileup galore, haha
Didn't spend countless hours on as I had other stuff to do, however, quality time when I was calling CQ