Spontaneous Personal Field Day
Fall is already here, the weather will be changing soon, business was having a slow day and I was restless. Perfect recipe for a drive up into the mountains. I decided to put a spin on things so I loaded up the HF rig, portable antenna, battery box along with all the works and headed up to the highest point I could find within a comfortable days round trip. Spontaneous personal field day.
I ended up on the top of Rock Point, about 5 miles north of Crater Lake National Park entrance.
Beautiful day, bright sunny skies and just a gentle breeze. As I approached the top of Rock Point on a rutted, steep dirt road in 4 wheel drive I spotted the perfect spot. A rock out crop big enough to back into with shade and a few taller trees to throw some paracord up for the antenna.
(Yep, that's coax. Didn't think to take pics until after I got set up. So just pretend it's not there yet.)
Gorgeous isn't it? In a few short weeks it will be a winter wonder land complete with about 10 feet of snow. The road you see in front of me is actually a snowmobile trail in the winter and 4 wheeler trail in the summer. But for today it's a perfect spot to play Radio!
It didn't take me long to learn lesson #1 - For some odd reason I throw like a girl ;) probably cause I am one.. always have had a challenged throwing arm.
Note to self- purchase a good wrist rocket for sending the cord into trees. After a few dozen tries I finally got the darn thing about 15ft up. Gonna be an NVIS antenna today, was shooting for an inverted V but it's what it is.
If I hadn't been alone some joker probably would have taken video of my hilarious attempts at throwing the bottle of water hooked to the cord into the trees. Thankfully you are saved the needless waste of time and my dignity stays somewhat intact.
Back to the set up. With the antenna put together and firmly strung out it ended up at about 15ft in the center and 6ft at the ends. On to the station set up. I tried to think of everything I would need but Murphy always strikes. After stringing out the coax, unpacking and setting up the rig and battery box I moved on to what should have been the easy part, the laptop. All set up I open up the computer and I had forgot to shut it down so it had been in sleep mode for a few hours draining the battery to below 1/4.
Lesson #2: Keep extra batteries in the go box or computer bag, not on the desk. As fate would have it the two extra batteries were 100 miles away sitting right in plain sight on my desk. Of coarse. Deep breath, just move on and deal.
Before I get on with the contacts I was able to make I'll tell you a little about the equipment I brought.
Battery box- described in a previous post, worked like a charm. Two 33ah gel wheelchair batteries set up in a Walmart tough box. Started the day with 13.3 on the meter and ended with 12.8, not bad.
HF rig- Yaesu ft450d. Good little radio, not a bunch of bells and whistles but has everything needed in a small package.
Antenna- CHA Tactical Dipole Lite. First time out with this and it's a keeper
Signal Link USB and a Windows 7 laptop running FLDIGI
Shade really messed with the pics of the station, wish some had turned out better.
All set up, turned on the rig and was pleasantly surprised with the reception. The 450d has an internal tuner that will tune anything up to a 3:1. Even though the antenna suggests a wide range tuner the internal one had no problem tuning on 20 and 40. I did bring a manual tuner just in case but thankfully it was not needed. After a call some AmRRON Corps contacts a few operators across the country joined in. We started on 40m digital but band conditions were not cooperating, even a station in Idaho couldn't get through to me. From my 6,000ft vantage point I think I could almost see their mountain tops in the distance.
The Corps operators I was in contact with suggested 20m was looking much better. I only got a couple of CQ's out at 25 watts when darned old Murphy killed my battery, and right when things started getting good. Reports were that what little signal I did get out was strong all across the country. So don't cry over dead batteries, on to plan B, voice. While I looked for the mic I knew was in one of the boxes I heard lots of contacts going on the digital frequency but without a laptop to decode it wasn't doing me much good. Well at least I knew reception was good. After switching to 20m voice I received contacts in Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas and Oklahoma right away. I was running 50 watts trying to save battery but looking back I probably could have bumped the power up a little more. I was receiving signals 5-9 but only West Virginia and Arkansas heard me above the noise enough to have a real contact. Still very happy with the way the first round turned out.
Now to fix the dead laptop battery problem. My computer case and radio go box has just about every connector you could think of...
...except for the one connector I needed for this DC charger...
...to fit the new comms laptop I set up.
Lesson #3: Make sure all the charger connectors are the right ones for the equipment. I forgot to upgrade the charger. And with about a hundred connectors, not a one to fit the need. Somehow it always seems to come down to not having the right connector no matter how may you try to stock up on. Plan B, again. I dug in the Jeep and found an inverter, plugged the laptop in and went for a hike. A well stocked vehicle does come in handy!
After about an hour I tried again and found a wonderful CW conversation going on between two AmRRON operators. I am in the process of learning CW, not ready to send out my mess yet, couldn't have even if I had wanted to as I don't have a key for the rig yet. One operator from north Utah and one from Montana tickled my ears for almost a half an hour. Thanks guys for the training opportunity! I found you both very easy to hear and that is what I have been struggling with the most. I did have fldigi running and it decoded most of the conversation but it always misses letters and decodes some wrong, those I was able to hear and fill in the blanks! Very encouraging for me, thanks again!
After their conversation I was able to have a wonderful QSO with a Corps operator from California at 25 watts. Signals were great and all the equipment cooperated!
All in all a great day, learned a lot and spent a few hours with the best group of people I've ever been involved with. Can't wait to do it again!
73's and God Bless our work!
For more information on joining this great group go to AmRRON.com
