[amsat-bb] Field Day

[Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)]

Hi!

I had originally planned to do Field Day from the mountains near Flagstaff,
in northern Arizona. Unfortunately, work got in the way of those plans, when
a phone system upgrade was scheduled for Field Day weekend. After the phone
system work was moved to this weekend, I had hoped to try working a pass or
two early on Saturday afternoon, before going into the office. Instead, I
brought some gear to the office on Saturday, and was able to work some
passes from balconies at my office. That was fun!

I brought my Elk antenna and two HTs with me - a Kenwood TH-D72A, and an Icom
ID-51A. The TH-D72A was my radio for any packet/APRS activity on the ISS and
NO-84. I tried that HT on SO-50, but intermod from a nearby hospital made
SO-50's 70cm downlink tough to hear. The ID-51A's receiver did a better job
at resisting the intermod, so I used it for SO-50. I worked 3 ISS passes, two
SO-50 passes, and one NO-84 pass on Saturday afternoon/evening from my
office.

The first ISS pass, a little before 2300 UTC, was only up to 7 degrees here.
I heard the ISS packets, but it didn't retransmit any of mine. The two later
ISS passes, around 0025 and 0200 UTC, were better passes. I was able to make
a QSO on each pass - W5BII in Louisiana on the 0025 UTC pass, and W6YX on
the later pass.

I heard NO-84 on its pass around 0135 UTC, and I got a couple of packets
through that satellite, but didn't log any QSOs. I didn't see my call show up
on the pcsat.aprs.org web site, but was able to see the retransmitted packets
when I looked on aprs.fi. I will try this satellite from home, to see if I do
better when I'm away from the intermod generator (hospital) near my office.

SO-50 was an interesting story... I worked two passes, around 0030 and 0215
UTC Saturday evening. The earlier pass came up from my south, went to the
east, and covered most of the continental USA. I didn't expect much from that
pass, but I was able to make a contact early in the pass with N5AT in
Arkansas, operated by Dave KG5CCI. The later pass, over the west coast,
seemed just as busy as the earlier eastern pass. I did not log any QSOs on
the later pass. If I had logged any other SO-50 QSOs besides N5AT, I would
have listed them in my Field Day submissions to ARRL and AMSAT, but not
scored them - something I have done for many years.

Since I was busier in the office on Sunday, I was not able to work any other
passes before Field Day wrapped up. Having the radios with me to break up the
quiet Saturday evening in the office was a very good thing. I was sending out
tweets during the evening, and have since posted my Field Day "soapbox"
report on the ARRL web site. It is at:

http://www.arrl.org/soapbox/view/9174

You can see other soapbox reports for Field Day and other ARRL contests at:

http://www.arrl.org/soapbox

You can also post your own reports on the ARRL web site.

In the next few days, I'll prepare my Field Day submissions for both ARRL and
AMSAT. I have already gone through the ARRL's web submissions page for Field
Day reports, and I'll get the proper AMSAT form off the web site. I wish I
had the whole weekend to do Field Day, but having some time for Field Day is
always better than no Field Day at all.

73!





Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK
http://www.wd9ewk.net/
Twitter: @WD9EWK


On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 7:00 PM, Paul Stoetzer <n8hm at arrl.net> wrote:
> How did everyone's Field Day go? Heard quite a bit of QSOs made. Heard
> quite a bit of struggling too!