Before you read any further, if you participated in this year's AARC Field Day operation we would like to hear your comments good and bad. If you think something needed to be done better or if we overlooked something, please let us know. We want to collect as many "lessons learned" as possible so we can pass them along to the next Field Day team. Please send them to: fd09@w3vpr.org
Wow!
First of all, Thank you for making our Field Day operation such a huge success!
After 24-hours, several things come to mind:
- We probaly set a record for participation in an AARC Field Day operation
- We probaly set a record for contacts made during an AARC Field Day operation
- We proved the nay-sayers and doubters wrong. It is possible to have a large Field Day operation, make lots of contacts and have fun.
- The plan and your participation made our Field Day a success
Here are some facts and comments.
Weather
- Friday - HOT! HOT! HOT!
- Saturday - Much nicer - Sunny but not as hot
- Sunday - cloudy and cool - just absolutely wonderful despite a slight chance of rain
Friday set-up
- Planned - 4 hrs
- Actual - 4 hrs 15 min (Including a 45 min break)
Saturday set-up
- Planned - 4 hrs
- Actual - 4.5 hrs
Number of stations and antennas
- 10 stations
- 6 Phone stations
- 3 CW stations
- 1 Digital stations
- 13 antennas
- 2 - 20/40m Phone V-beams
- 1 - 10-80m Phone dipole
- 1 - 20/40m Digital inverted Vee
- 1 - 10m Phone sloping dipole
- 1 - 15m Phone slopintdipole
- 2 - 20/40m CW V-beams
- 1 - 80m CW dipole
- 1 - 20/15/10m CW Yagi
- 1 - 2m Phone Yagi
- 1 - 6m Phone loop
- 1 - 160m Phone inverted Vee
Field Day operations start at 1800Z
- Update Due to a log error, an entry had to be deleted which changed the credit for contacts 100, 500 and 1000. The last contact was processed with 2 seconds to spare. We haven't looked at the entire log so there's a chance more changes will occur.
- First contact - 1802Z by KB3LZV on 6m
- 100th contact - 1943Z by Unknown on 15m phone
- 500th contact - 0421Z by Unknown on 20m Digital
- 1000th contact - 1621Z by "EJP" on 40m CW
- Last contact - 1759Z by "WA8EIH" on 40m CW
Field Day operations stop at 1800Z
- All radios and generators turned off
- Total contacts made: 1092
- Phone Contacts: 535
- Digital Contacts: 90
- CW Contacts: 467
Take-down started at 3:00pm and was completed just before 5:00pm
Meals - The true highlight of our entire Field Day operation. Special Kudos to our Food Crew for an outstanding effort! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
- Terry - KB3CWQ
- Barb - KB3LDM
- Margaret - KB3LGC
- Fred - K3LMR
- Jane (Fred's wife)
Photos - If you took any photos or videos of any phase of our Field Day operation, we'd like copies so we can put together a Field Day photo album and make a Field Day movie. Bring your photos to the club meeting on Thursday (2 July), send them by e-mail to aa3rr@ki3ds.org, or put them on a CD and mail the CD to Bob/AA3RR, 7901 Pepperbox Ln, Pasadena, MD 21122
Total Participants: 127
- 68 club members (Outstanding!)
- 59 Non-club members
Some observations
- From 2:00pm until about midnight, the phone shelter was crowded with people standing by to get a chance to sit down and make contacts. The same phenomenon occurred in the CW shelter.
- More photos were taken of the photographer from the "Capitol" than she took of our Field day operation.
- Many club members made lots of complimentary comments about our Field Day operation.
- The following students from the Field Day Morse Code class made CW contacts:
- Bob/WA3HOO - First ever CW contact!
- Kim/KB3NGU - First ever CW contact!
- Mark/KA3RNW - First ever CW contact!
- Nick/N3CK
- Chuck/AA3CS
- Lots of people won hourly door prizes and the following people won the "Grand Door Prizes::
- Murad/N3JOP - $50 HRO gift certificate
- Bill/WB2EIQ - 2009 ARRL Handbook
- Robbie/KB3PEB - ARRL Emergency Communications Handbook
- Milford/N3WYG - ARRL Operating Manual
- Barb/KB3LDM - Repeater Directory
- Fred/KB3LMR - Repeater Directory
- Mike/WA3SKN - Repeater Directory
- Greg/KB3SWZ - Repeater Directory
- Kim/KB3NGU - Repeater Directory
We'll give a Field Day presentation that will wrap up our Field Day operation at the Club meeting on 6 August.
Please send us your suggestions/recommendations on how we could have made Field Day better: fd09@w3vpr.org
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2009 FD Committee
