Field Day 2012 – New Location, New Adventure
Field Day at a new location is always interesting and challenging. How are we going to put up antennas? Will we have enough room? Will we have enough help? Will we have places for ground rods? Will we disturb the neighbors? Will we have enough altitude? Will the gate or building be open for us? How bad will the bugs be? What kinds of animals might come around? How will we prepare food of our usual high standards? Will people find their way to the location? What will the weather be like? And the big one, will everyone enjoy themselves? While we put as much of that to bed as possible ahead of time, this was the first time in a very long time that I laid awake the night before Field Day with all those what-ifs running through my head.
It seems all the preparations and worrying paid off (or was unnecessary), because Field Day 2012 seems to have been a success. Everyone said they had a good time and really seemed to enjoy themselves. The food was terrific as always, we seemed to figure out the new site pretty quickly and were ready to go on the air about 30 minutes ahead of time. We even had to kick people off at the end of the 24 hours. And we even had a good score.
Comments on the new site were positive. The trees gave us lots of shade and kept us maybe 10 degrees cooler than we might have been. Almost everyone commented on how nice and quiet it was, and how much more relaxing it seemed than previous years. We had more room to spread out, and only took advantage of a very small part of it all. If we go back there, we’ll spread out even more. We were able to get a couple of cars at the pavilion at a time for unloading and loading, and we got to park them in the grass fairly near the pavilion, even though at first it seemed the ranger was about to chase us off the grass. Most importantly, the walk to the bathroom wasn’t bad after all.
I’ve already started a file of notes for 2013. So if you have comments, thoughts, or some of those “you know what we should have done’s”, let me know and I’ll file them away for next year.
Hats off to the setup crew got us up and ready at least 30 minutes ahead of time. Everyone just pitched right in. Before I hardly knew it, the beam was together and up in the air. Mike L and Mike J picked some really good trees and our wire antennas were higher than I’ve ever seen them. Stan saved the day making up some long network cables that I had forgotten all about. It would have been a shame to be waiting for the computers after everyone had done all the really work already.
The only downside was a nasty noise on 40 m and 80 m, which we didn’t figure out until Sunday morning. Turned out to be the shore power didn’t have a local ground at the pavilion. Once we connected the safety ground to one of our ground rods, it all quieted right down - amazingly quiet as a matter of fact. It was a lesson we’ll all probably remember for a long time. (I’m going to double check my home station this week). I’ve also ordered some plugs, wire, and battery clamps to make up some nice grounding jumpers to make it easy the next time we have to deal with something like that.
The weather was nice but a bit warm during the day. We were very thankful for the shade back in the trees. At night the temperatures were down in the 50’s. When I finally laid down as the sun was coming up, I realized I’d forgotten to bring a blanket. Mike L loaned me a fleece but I still froze. Yes, a blanket is already on the list for next year.
Like every year, I’m disappointed that we didn’t get everyone on the air for at least one contact. Interesting though, last year we had 14 operators and the year before we had 15. This year, we actually had 16, including 2 guests we got on the air. We actually had 3 new local area hams come by. At least one will be joining the club.
Master Chefs Dave January and Jules worked their usual magic with the food. Pulled port barbeque and pit beef were the signature dishes, and the ambrosia was outstanding. I’m sure no one went away hungry. Thanks to both Dave and Jules for all their hard work.
We operated 4A as we have for the last 5 years and we broke 3000 points for the third straight year. Last year we had 3008. This year, we came in at 3062. If it hadn’t been for that static noise problem on 40, we’d have probably picked up another 100 points easily.
Click here for the full Field Day Report for 2012.
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