Member III
This is where I will be operating from this weekend. Looks like a decent area to set up some antennas.
Field Day 2020
- Thread starter Prerunner1982
- Start date
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
That does look like a great spot... I’m hoping the campground isn’t packed... although it looked that way when I was visiting @St0ll3n
Member III
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
Well I got into the campground at a little past 4. Camp is set up, and I’m waiting until tomorrow to find out what the band plan is so I can deploy my antennas.
Im stoked... pictures to come in the morning if cell signal is good enough... if not... next week.
Im stoked... pictures to come in the morning if cell signal is good enough... if not... next week.
Member III
Not quite as much room as the above pictures make it appear but I can work with it.
Got camp set up and went for a swim to cool off.
Got camp set up and went for a swim to cool off.
Last edited:
Member III
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
Member III
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
I learned a lot...
Field Day was the first time I had Everest used the HF bands. I bought a multi band end fed dipole... it worked great on all the bands while testing on Friday, but Saturday I was getting whipped out and couldn’t make a single contact... in fact I couldn’t even hear anything... another guy in our club mad 46 contacts within the first hour. I flipped over to his band and still never hear a thing... so finally out of desperation I built a 20m Dipole our of a coax cable and some random wire I had stored in my Bronco. Not having my soldering station, or my electrical connector box, I just twisted the wires together and held them in place with tape and para cord. 20 minutes later I had a fully functional 20m antenna that I was able to finally hear on and ended up making three contacts.
I am already pretty big into making antennas, so I am going to be building a whole arsenal of antennas for next year.
I think the biggest thing I learned was... get as high as you can... if the guys are putting up their antennas at 100’ put your up to 120’.
I spent a lot of time helping a new ham get his station set up and feel comfortable on the air. Unfortunately the bands Technicians can run is pretty small, and he didn’t have the correct antenna system for the 10m and 6m bands.
overall our club did good with just over 500 contacts, 300 of the contacts came from one guy.
I think I also got interested in contesting... I’m going to be looking into that more after I get my End Fed Dipole back up. (Hopefully today or tomorrow depending on how my reroofing project goes.
Field Day was the first time I had Everest used the HF bands. I bought a multi band end fed dipole... it worked great on all the bands while testing on Friday, but Saturday I was getting whipped out and couldn’t make a single contact... in fact I couldn’t even hear anything... another guy in our club mad 46 contacts within the first hour. I flipped over to his band and still never hear a thing... so finally out of desperation I built a 20m Dipole our of a coax cable and some random wire I had stored in my Bronco. Not having my soldering station, or my electrical connector box, I just twisted the wires together and held them in place with tape and para cord. 20 minutes later I had a fully functional 20m antenna that I was able to finally hear on and ended up making three contacts.
I am already pretty big into making antennas, so I am going to be building a whole arsenal of antennas for next year.
I think the biggest thing I learned was... get as high as you can... if the guys are putting up their antennas at 100’ put your up to 120’.
I spent a lot of time helping a new ham get his station set up and feel comfortable on the air. Unfortunately the bands Technicians can run is pretty small, and he didn’t have the correct antenna system for the 10m and 6m bands.
overall our club did good with just over 500 contacts, 300 of the contacts came from one guy.
I think I also got interested in contesting... I’m going to be looking into that more after I get my End Fed Dipole back up. (Hopefully today or tomorrow depending on how my reroofing project goes.
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
ohh forgot to mention, I ordered a NanoVNA for testing my antenna systems for Field Day, but it arrived late, so my wife brought it up to camp for me... a lot of good that did, I forgot to download the software before I left and had no real knowledge on how to use it. Now that I am home, I have been playing around with my new piece of tech and am loving it. Now time to learn how to read Smith Charts so I can tell what is up with my 160-80m Box Frame Antenna I built... looking at some of the specs I think my problem lays in the adjustable Cap that I used... it’s supposed to be a 75pf cap and I am getting 1.75pf... but the VSWR is reading 1.6:1 a crossed both bands. But for some reason I can’t get it to work in my rig... I love this hobby...
Member III
Did you figure out what was wrong with the end fed dipole?
Nice work on throwing together the dipole.
I built a linked (10,15,20,40) dipole for use this year and liked it a lot, highest SWR was 1.4 or so.
I ended up with 160 contacts, the difference between parkin and barkin (your guy) and hunt and pounce (me)...
I do prefer the contest and DX because it doesn't involve rag chewing, swap info and move on..
Nice work on throwing together the dipole.
I built a linked (10,15,20,40) dipole for use this year and liked it a lot, highest SWR was 1.4 or so.
I ended up with 160 contacts, the difference between parkin and barkin (your guy) and hunt and pounce (me)...
I do prefer the contest and DX because it doesn't involve rag chewing, swap info and move on..
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
Actually most of his contacts were hunting... I was the club caller on Saturday until someone stole my Frequency
the problem with my endfed dipole was its height in relationship to the antennas from the rest of the club, as well as we found out that multiband antennas would get drowned out by single band antennas.... another problem with the antenna is that the BuLun (sp) has to be between 1’ and 5’ off the ground sloping to 25’. The instructions were very clear in this, when we experimented with orienting the antenna vertical and horizontal the range was greatly affected.
I am working on a multiband 80-6m OCD dipole for next year... thought process is to make the dipole out of para cord to support my wire, cut the dipole for 6,10, 20,40, and 80m connecting the wires via banana connectors.
I will post more of this in my personal project page when I get around to building it...
Member III
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
More or less due to where they put me at the camp ground... the place they put me I had to stretch 400’ of rope for my 20m dipole to get the coax close enough to hook up to my shack.. I figure OCD would help not have to use as much rope.
Member III
That's part of the reason I run my linked dipole in an inverted V, for one it's easier to get to the links and since I carry a 23' collapsible mast I can set up with or without a tree.
If there are trees I only need one to hoist the feed point up into and since the ends are angled down to the ground I just need 20-30' of rope at each end to tie it out to the wires create at least a 90° angle with each other at the feed point.
Like you I enjoy building antennas.
If there are trees I only need one to hoist the feed point up into and since the ends are angled down to the ground I just need 20-30' of rope at each end to tie it out to the wires create at least a 90° angle with each other at the feed point.
Like you I enjoy building antennas.
Enthusiast I
Total wash out for me this year. Just wasn't feeling it :( Under normal circumstanced I head up to North Jersey with my club and we normally run 5A NNJ. These are from prior years...
Attachments
Member III
- 2,827
- First Name
- Kevin
- Last Name
- Trvlr
- Member #
-
20466
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- KK7NAZ
- Service Branch
- MM1 US Navy
Well my club made 2 contacts. We had just got set up and on the air when a micro burst hit both tables we were set up on, took both umbrellas off and while we finally found one 1/4 mile away we never found the other. It turned the tables over and scattered the radios, power supplies, keys and all the other loose stuff on it.
That was it for us, we spent the rest of the day taking radios apart and cleaning them with little brushes and canned air. My power supply has a dent in it along with the case on my FT-857D. I'm sending the 857 back to Yaesu for a tune up and maybe a new case.
Hope all you guys enjoyed the day and will be around for next year.
73's...
That was it for us, we spent the rest of the day taking radios apart and cleaning them with little brushes and canned air. My power supply has a dent in it along with the case on my FT-857D. I'm sending the 857 back to Yaesu for a tune up and maybe a new case.
Hope all you guys enjoyed the day and will be around for next year.
73's...
Advocate III
- 5,584
- First Name
- Michael
- Last Name
- Rose
- Member #
-
20990
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- W7FSB
- Service Branch
- US ARMY Retired
Traveler II
Member III
- 2,827
- First Name
- Kevin
- Last Name
- Trvlr
- Member #
-
20466
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- KK7NAZ
- Service Branch
- MM1 US Navy
Hey we had 2 contacts, nobody got hurt and we had a good time for the most part. We're laughing about it now and making plans for 2021.
