What are you preping for field day?

[Prybry]

With the national ARRL field day event coming up the end of June, is anyone preping their equipment or special rigs for the event?

I'm working on my pickup camper, putting on 3 new antennas and laying out where to put my two radios and laptop. The radios are both Yaesu units, FT897 with FC30 tuner and a FT817. The antennas are 1) multiband discone used mainly for 6 meters, 2) End fed long wire setup as a NVIS, and 3) 20 meter dipole build from a pair of ham sticks. The group I'm with will also be running a bunch of huge antennas as well.

On top of the radio work, I'm also the head chef... I bring a half dozen dutch ovens and make all the meals for a crew of 20+ guys. Here is a link to pictures from last year to give you an idea... I'm the "iron chef"!
http://www.oscarmn.org/FD2009Pic.html
It's a blast...

Anyway, what is everyone else planning?
Prybry

 

[PhulesAU]

trying to be the Operator that gets us digital points, and does some good on 6mtrs. I've built a qwik deploy "Ground Spider" for hamsticks.

 

[gary in ohio]

My ARES group will be active during field day. We will be operating 3A Ohio.

Ill have my "gokit" HF radio.

and my military surplus mast system

and my transportable tower

My station will be active on on 20,40,80 ssb and digital

 

[xtatik]

Looks like you guys are putting on a great function.
We're concentrating on putting up 5 or 6 HF stations. We've been planning and assembling gear for months....push-up poles, radios, filters, miles of coax, generators, batteries, even a wind turbine. We've been building dipoles for most stations, but we'll have a variety of compact, field deployable HF antennas and stations....end-feds, dipoles, vertical dipoles, screwdrivers.
We're attempting to put together field stations that could be easily packed into an offroad vehicle and quickly put together in the field by one or two people. We're putting this on for an offroad oriented group primarily, and in keeping with this theme, we're not putting up beams. Next year we'll probably put up some mini-beams, spider beams/hex-beams or quads.....mostly wire beams....we're gonna' get the group walking before they run.

 

[gary in ohio]

I am the EC for our county as well as club president, Our field day is a much "portable/transportable" gear as possible. Most of our club members have military mast antenna systems, some configured for HF, some for UHF/VHF.
Even the short tower is transportable in a pickup if needed.

 

[SunTzuNephew]

With the national ARRL field day event coming up the end of June, is anyone preping their equipment or special rigs for the event?

I'm working on my pickup camper, putting on 3 new antennas and laying out where to put my two radios and laptop. The radios are both Yaesu units, FT897 with FC30 tuner and a FT817. The antennas are 1) multiband discone used mainly for 6 meters, 2) End fed long wire setup as a NVIS, and 3) 20 meter dipole build from a pair of ham sticks. The group I'm with will also be running a bunch of huge antennas as well.

On top of the radio work, I'm also the head chef... I bring a half dozen dutch ovens and make all the meals for a crew of 20+ guys. Here is a link to pictures from last year to give you an idea... I'm the "iron chef"!
http://www.oscarmn.org/FD2009Pic.html
It's a blast...

Anyway, what is everyone else planning?
Prybry

I always figured if you have to 'prep', you're not ready for a disaster....

 

[xtatik]

I always figured if you have to 'prep', you're not ready for a disaster....

Well, yes and no. Many of our operators are participating in Field Day for the first time. I'm a Ham first, and offroader second. As is true with many members here, most of our group is very much the opposite. I have my favored stuff for setting up a station remotely and it's always ready to go. My shack is set up to run w/o municipal power in a moments notice....provided my house is still standing. A big component to Field Day is putting it together so that others can participate....and that takes preparation.

 

[Prybry]

first time with my own radios...

My prep is needed since I was only "Chief Cook and Bottle washer" at last years event since I only had my Tech license for about 2 weeks prior and didn't even have a radio yet. Since then I've passed my General and accuired the two HF radios and built more antennas than I can count.
So this will be a big building year for me... for most of our club, they are ready to go year round.

I find it interesting that my club seems to revolve around this event... 6 months of planning "what we want to do this year" and then 6 months of "how can we do that better". So "prep" for this event is never complete.

Prybry
KØBDD

 

[gary in ohio]

Field Day is only 3 days away.... Are you ready?
Use http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator to find a local field day site.

 

[PhulesAU]

Yes!:coffeedrink:

 

[xtatik]

Yep.

 

[Deltarat]

Look For W6DOJ on the air Field Day

Look for W6DOJ (CA. Dept. of Justice Radio Club) on the air field day. Three operators (K6ON, K6YN, K6XN). On the air from 5000' in the Sierra's near Blue Canyon, CA.

Operating 6 bands, CW & SSB off the grid on generator/solar/battery power.

One station will be on 40 meters continuously with the other two stations switching bands as conditions change.

Send a real QSL for one of our great cards.. We don't do EQSL..Sorry


See you in the pileup's..

de K6ON

 

[xtatik]

look for w6doj (ca. Dept. Of justice radio club) on the air field day. Three operators (k6on, k6yn, k6xn). On the air from at 5000' in the sierra's near blue canyon, ca.

Operating 6 bands, cw & ssb off the grid on generator/solar/battery power.

One station will be on 40 meters continuously with the other two stations switching bands as conditions change.

Send a real qsl for one of our great cards.. We don't do eqsl..sorry


see you in the pileup's..

De k6on

fb!

 

[gary in ohio]

Ill be one of the operators for W8NL, operating 3A Ohio this weekend.

 

[PhulesAU]

:wings: Worked W1AW:victory: