FIELD DAY 2002 @ KA2BEO

Our ninth consecutive Field Day since 1994 certainly proved to be an 
interesting one. This was our first year operating in a club category, class 
A, so even my unlicensed nephew, Arthur was able to join in on the fun by 
working a few Field Day stations with us. For a non-traditional mode, we 
tried slow-scan television (SSTV), but experienced noisy band conditions, 
and at the last minute, decided to move to a different mode for this year. 
Another first for us, we operated the new PSK31 digital mode, and made at 
least 10 contacts. We were amazed at how simple it is to use this mode, 
considering that none of us have ever tried it before. Yet, we succeeded to 
contact a Russian station with only 30 watts! Jeff, KC2IHZ provided the 
station location this year and most of the equipment as well. His condominium 
is nearly the highest point in town, so (except for one angry tenant) the 
building was a good choice. John, N2PHX purchased a new Van Gorden G5RV 
antenna just for the event. In the early morning hours, sometime past the 24-
hour midway point, we started struggling to make even an occasional contact. 
After many frustrating hours, we finally discovered that a stealthy neighbor 
had sabotaged our antenna in the middle of the night! We ensured that the 
antenna was positioned legally and carefully to minimize attention, and I 
doubt that TVI was a problem since our nearby TV was just fine. The 
telephone was okay too. Regardless, John's brand new dipole was cut right in 
half, and the remaining feedline and active part of the antenna had been 
coiled up, and then thrown in the yard! Amazingly, the mangled antenna system 
was lying on the ground, yet tuned up perfectly. This resulted in us not 
being able to work many stations for a significant portion (at least a third) 
of the operating period. Although less than ideal, we switched to a 20-meter 
micro-dipole fed from a tuner to permit transmitting on several bands. The 
antenna was hung from a pool-pole on the second floor sun deck, and it looked 
like an outrigger on a fishing vessel. The dipole was hand-made from two 
mobile whips, and served as a make shift antenna to finish up the day. On 
Sunday, we planned to copy the PSK31 ARRL bulletin, but during the excitement 
of discovering our grounded dipole, we missed the last message transmission. 
Again, we didn't use VHF, UHF, or packet, and we didn't make any QRP or 
natural-power contacts this year. Being unfamiliar with some of the new 
equipment, such as Jeff's Yaesu FT-847 transceiver and MFJ-492 keyer, new 
Windows logging software, and PSK31 related hardware and software, caused a 
slight reduction in our number of contacts also. Fewer CW contacts accounted 
for a drop to almost one third of previous point totals, and bonus points 
were about one third of previous years as well. We managed to only scrape up 
100 bonus points this time around. However, the time was well spent learning 
the proper use of the new equipment during the event. More importantly, 
eyeball QSOs were up significantly throughout the weekend. Despite the lower 
score, this Field Day turned out to be another great time for all involved 
and a weekend full of fun. We even got a free lesson from Jeff on how to 
engage in eyeball QSOs while sleeping. See you next year! 73 de Rob, KA2BEO.