Was wondering if Field Day was going to be great this year but I had a BLAST working 80, 40 and 6 meters Phone, CW, and FT-8 on 6 meters safe at our house. The XYL made pizza and hamburg's and we all had fun together. Both the XYL and I took part making contacts. Wouldn't say it's a winner, but a lot of fun. 73's Chuck (K8BBE) & Barb (KA8CRF)
I worked FT4 on 6 thru 40 meters. for Faster QSO's excluding 30 17 & 12 meters. I enjoyed using my home setup for Field-Day! Most contacts I ever made during this event.
Great video, thank's KB1THM. I had a blast at my first field day - even tho I was making funny faces while pulling up the beam lol
This was the first year in decades that I did not participate in field day. I have served in multiple capacities from simple operating, to station captains, to operations to co-captain of the food preparation and management. Covid-19 has made this too risky this year, so we will see what next year will bring us. I did not participate at home as I am not a contest fan and half of the fun is the service to the amateur community, assisting with the setup and breakdown of the field day location and working with my YL, who is also a ham. Maybe next year!
This year was actually fun. I was not sure it was going to be... Our club setup a spot on our web site that the logging software did uploads to on a 1-3 minute interval. There were a bunch of us playing radio. 2 of us got into a "tiny" competition. I was working FT-8 and he was running SSB. He killed me even though SSB contacts were 1 point and FT-8 contacts were 2 points. FT-8 was just not as fast. I was time constrained at about 30 contacts per hour max rate that I could sustain. He busted 1300+ contacts and did not work the number of hours I did. He is a seasoned contester and this is only my second field day. Last year I got 200 or so contacts. This year was 503. I did work 6,10,15,20,40,80,160. 10 and 15 were busy. That was neat to those bands active. No, not as fun as the group running in a park or other outside location. But, we did make it a group deal with the logging software hookup. Wheeee. Let's play radio!
Had fun making a few contacts from the house. Hard to compare with the 80's, and my shack in a horse trailer, complete with rapid deploy 35' push up mast. A vertical antenna, with elevated counterpoise. A picture perfect setting sun on a tall bluff, overlooking the Mississippi River. Clarke, (SK) retired railroad cw op, stopped over to take a look at all the foolishness, vowing to never take part. He stopped by the trailer, heard me working a pileup on 20 cw, told him cw gets double the points of phone. "Nah, I'm too old, and doubt I could run all night without sleeping in my own bed." Said I, "most of the ops will go home soon after the evening meal. They put up an 80 meter dipole in some trees, on the edge of that bluff, over there. Think it's hooked up to a brand new Kenwood 830. I plan to run 40 all night." Clarke went home, but returned with his bug. At 4 am, took a stroll over to the 830. Clarke was still working them fast on 80 cw, with a grin. "Addicting, ain't it?" Finished a contact, looked over his shoulder, a pair of r's, and a hihi came over the side tone. Along with a wink, and a smile.
Nice video and thanks for posting it. I was beginning the think that no-one on QRZ had any fun this year, based on previous threads! Anyway, thanks again!
This was the first Field Day I was able to participate. I've been an operator since 1993, and joined various clubs, but it seemed like all the chairs were full. This year, after upgrading to Extra on the 26th (the day before field day), I was determined to participate from my 1 Delta station. Had an absolute BLAST. It was awesome listening to so many operators and trying to get my 10 seconds of QSO with a compromised antenna set up. I'll be ready next year! Made many contacts in the after dinner hours and finally went to bed at midnight. Got up at 5:00 am and went back after it. No, I didn't get out of the double digits, but the fun was still there.
Best post I've read in a l-o-n-g time! I love this story. Thank you very much for sharing it. And RIP, Clarke. You did good, OM!
