FIELD DAY 2000 @ KA2BEO

The big one, Field Day 2000, was our seventh consecutive Field Day 
since 1994, and it turned out to be our best Field Day yet. 
With the highest score that we ever achieved in number of contacts and 
total points, this Field Day was an exciting one. 
This was our first "dry" Field Day, without 807s (beer), which may 
account for our higher score and improved operating skills. 
Bill, KB2RAR, and I didn't bother with VHF, UHF, or packet this year. 
However, in the evening, we demonstrated the operation of slow-scan 
television (SSTV) using only a Pentium laptop PC running W95SSTV 
software and an ICOM IC-PCR1000 receiver connected to a two-foot square 
loop antenna on the 20-meter band. At least five pictures were received 
successfully during our demo. We were all suprised to hear at least one 
club this year using up to 35 simultaneous transmitters. 
Again, we used the exercise bike generator built by John, N2PHX, to 
work a total of 10 stations on 40-meters CW with 5-watts out. Amazingly, 
the human-powered QRP rig allowed us to reach as far as Minnesota. 
Using the "pedal-power" setup made us thankful for our 12-volt car 
batteries that we used for the remainder of the operating event. 
Interestingly, we only made one phone contact on 80-meters this year. 
Although I had a message already prepared for our section manager, we 
knew of no traffic handling on HF, and lost out on the 100 bonus points. 
However, we managed to get 400 bonus points for some of the other 
successful challenges. Opposite from last year, we ended up with exactly 
one phone contact more than CW contacts. The ARRL pins for this Field 
Day were sold out again, as they were last year, so we are waiting for 
the second batch to arrive. This is the second year for the ARRL to offer 
such pins. This practice ironically started the year after I submitted 
pictures of the Field Day badges that I made for KA2BEO participants in 
1998. The weather was perfect for us this year, with no rain. The great 
band conditions and lots of good food and people to help out made Field 
Day 2000 another weekend of fun and success. We'll see you again next 
June. 73, Rob, KA2BEO.