They went 5 miles further west to see a decaying human remains, but the media didn’t bother to stop by Ham Radio Field Day

29. June 2010 by admin.

We were at Weston Rd and State Rd 84 … in Markham Park, demonstrating how Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) operators can set up in minimal time, including with emergency power, completely off the grid, to provide communications in emergencies.

The media went 5 miles further west to report on a decayed human remains. But they didn’t bother, despite being invited, to stop by to Ham Radio Field Day operations. I guess it’s more sensational, the human remains, than Ham Radio Field Day. We ended Field Day operations at 2pm Sunday and started our tear down (disassembly) of our antennas and equipment and temporary structures (tents.) The sensational human remains thing came to light Monday morning. Either that kept them from coming (the day before or two?) or the sensation of a sexual scandal involving former Vice President Al Gore. I guess they would rather report on GORE than on GOOD things. Pun totally intended. Now if we’d have shot a racoon … or one of us got eaten by a wild alligator in the woods - in the park - they might have stopped by. Maybe?

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73 from KA4UDX,

Alan Spicer

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TS-480SAT and a rag tag Band of (Ham) Brothers kicked Butt in the 2010 Field Day

29. June 2010 by admin.

The C3i Amateur Radio Group, www.ac4xq.net, participated in Field Day 2010 as a 2 Alpha SFL - South Florida entry. We still have to resolve our logs for exact numbers and such…

TS-480SAT was one of the two Main HF Stations used. It was operated on a Marine Deep Cycle Battery + 10 amp power supply. Sunday during daylight hours it was operated only on the battery. I just forgot to bring out the power supply and hook it up. We didn’t even notice it wasn’t there until the 2pm end of operations. We were just in a rush to get operating and get as many contacts as we could before the curtain came down at 2pm.

We had a 40 foot trailer tower that cranked up with a TA33JR Mosley beam with two off-center fed dipoles also strung from the top. We shared the TA33JR with the other HF station, also a Kenwood - I don’t remember what model but that was nice radio as well. So we spent some time on 15 meters and 10 meters, and even 20 meters on dipoles as well.

The microphone was Heil HM-10 and the Narrow “DX Dream” help get attention to us as well as to cut through when conditions were tough. And let me tell you with so many signals on the air, literally one or two Khz apart at times … conditions often go tough. But the Kenwood TS-480SAT hung in there tough as well a cracked almost every nut that was thrown at it.

The TS-480SAT, especially when on the TA33JR, created pile ups to us virtually everywhere we went. It was amazing how 10 meters hung in there for us all weekend. But we hammered out some contacts in pileups we created on 15 meters as well. 20 meters was so over-crowded that we usually switched bands rather than try to stay on 20.

We switched operators quite a bit, we even had operators that had barely if ever operated HF. We were transmitting for hours at a time with 100 watts full output power. The radio never got hot enough to cook hamburgers so we kept using the barbeque grill for the cooking. If she ever go it bit warm the fan kicked in and brought her right back to just a light warmness. The radio never hiccupped it never burped … it never got in the way of what we were doing. It was a joy to have on the field day site … and everyone there said just that “That’s a Nice RAdio”. That was said quite a few times.

By the way, the temerature outside was in the 90’s - not sure what the humidity was. There was no air conditioning in that tent. That particular tent we left all 4 sides open since we had NO RAIN (thank God!) the whole weekend. We had a nice breeze coming through the tent. We were right on a lake in Markham Park in Sunrise, Florida near the Southwest end of Broward County Florida.

We had racoons visit us several times… There were warning signs at the lake about alligators. None came to visit thankfully. Bugs were fairly tame although I hit myself with bug repellent Saturday night.

Setup and teardown times were around 2 hours only for the main radio, antennas, and tents. The 2 RV’s and a huge generator (courtesy of a Generator Company Guy also a ham and club member) were still there when I left around 4:30pm Sunday. But the don’t add much time to the teardown operation. We ate good food all weekend, gourmet hamburgers and hot dogs, barbeque chicken, corn on the grill, potato salid, and lots of water and Coca Colas. Boy did we have Fun!!!!

Note: These pictures are (C) Copyright 2010 Alan Spicer. The Media, that didn’t bother to show up … may NOT reproduce or use these photos. Period. Licensed amateur radio operators feel free to use them for non-profit purposes at your leisure.

 

We did a pre-field day meeting and tower checkout a couple weeks before Field Day

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And here it is up at the actual Field Day by the lake - 

With Mosley TA33JR Beam Antenna on the Top and Off-Center Fed Dipole antennas attached and strung and secured into place…

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And here is our VHF and UHF “Stack” on a mast secured to the rear ladder of an RV. This stack and our VHF / UHF (6-Meters) operation was courtesy of John W6BXQ. You’ll note some “Home Brewing” in these antennas. The 2-Meter VHF antenna was once a Television antenna … cut for 2-Meter Band

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During breaks from “Radio Ops” we could relax, cool off, eat, or meet here…

 

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Another photo opportunity of the VHF-UHF Antenna “Stack”

 

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Here is the VHF-UHF Antenna “Stack” from another angle…

 

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RV with Satellite TV …

“Now we got country and western on the bus,
R & B, we got disco in 8-tracks and casettes in stereo
We’ve got rural scenes and magazines
And we’ve got (Ham Radio Operators on the Rigs)
We got Richard Pryor on the video
We’ve got time to think of the ones we love
While the miles roll away…”

 

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A nice wide shot looking east at the site … the tents were not up yet.

 

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We had Golf Cart! Well the guy that owned it had one. Parked in the back of that white RV (the one behind the other RV in the foreground)

 

06-25-10_1628.jpg - The tower trailer setup

06-25-10_1629.jpg - Nice shot of the tower with the Mosley TA33JR Beam Antenna and the American Flag at the top. The tower also had blinking Tower Lighting on the top

06-25-10_1631.jpg - A shot upwards towards the top of the tower shows more detail The sun tried to creep into this picture. Note the beacon red light fixture at the top of the tower before the mast with the antenna and the flag. Note the rope cord we used to steer and turn the beam antenna

06-25-10_1647.jpg - Warning Wild Alligators! We tied a rope securing one of the dipole antennas to this sign.

06-25-10_1648.jpg - A nice picture “In the Field” during antenna setup, dipoles!

06-25-10_1656.jpg - I see a Dipole Antenna going up, note the balun and feedpoint for coaxial cable hookup. Note: for non hams a lot of antennas have their ratings compared to a dipole antenna. So here is a real dipole antenna!

06-25-10_2017.jpg - The Kenwood TS-480SAT Transceiver and Power Supply (battery not visible) on Friday - Set up day/night time radio checkout and warm up for Field Day

06-25-10_2018.jpg - Another shot of the Kenwood TS-480SAT during initial setup and checkout

06-26-10_1510.jpg - And we’re Operating! Saturday starting 2:00PM 06-26-2010 Our Field Day Operation went into Action! This is the 2nd radio tent, with the other Kenwood HF Station … and at the other table across from the foreground was Johns 6 meter, 2 meter, and 70 centimeter (vhf lo, vhf, uhf) radio equipment

06-26-10_1511.jpg - 2nd radio tent, operations, another view…

06-26-10_1515.jpg - 1st radio tent … John W6BXQ working on the logging program. The TS-480SAT is here, and another GOTO station used if visitors would want to talk on the radio - without interrupting the main HF radio operation

06-26-10_1518.jpg - The rear of the same radio tent #1 (note this designation is arbitrary and does not make it more important, both tents and radio setups were imporant and worked tremendously well)

06-26-10_1846.jpg - AC4XQ “Field Day” 2 Alpha South Florida - ON THE AIR!!!!

* Ok … that’s all for now … I’ve got a lot more pictures, and others took pictures as well. I may make a seperate AC4XQ (unofficial) Field Day picture page elsewhere here on MarineTelecom.Net. * If that were to occur, and it’s very likely it would be at:

http://www.marinetelecom.net/AC4XQFieldDay2010AmateurRadioHamRadio

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73 from KA4UDX,

Alan Spicer

 

 

—
73 de KA4UDX,
Alan Spicer

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