En Masse Activation: Amateur Radio Field Days Are Here!
A dozen or so hams went to play radio at the Dennison Lake Recreation Area of Otter River State Forest in Winchendon, MA. We took advantage of a Parks-On-The-Air activation (POTA K-4745) as well as the CQ Worldwide WPX contest to make some QSOs. The perfectly spring weather could almost make one forget the existence of 2020.
We’ve done this a few times now, heading off to a park or even a summit to get on the air together. These are come one, come all, no experience (or ham license) required events that we try to widely distribute notice of. And we always get a respectable turnout (for such an arcane hobby in the middle of a pandemic). And generally, we stick with pretty basic handy talkies and hf gear (i.e., wire antennas). But, this time, a definite layer of sophistication that approached–maybe even surpassed–the average ARRL Field Day (minus the food!) emerged. Take a look at what I means…in short, these operators were not schlucking around!
First of all, we set up *six* HF antennas, for an antenna-to-people ratio of roughly 1:2. That is not even counting the UHF/VHF antennas on our easily accessed vehicles in the parking lot, or the handheld Arrow yagi. We ran five HF radio stations off of batteries. A full complement of band pass filters (from Dunestar and Array Solutions) allowed us to run simultaneously and without interfering with one another. A RigExpert 55A antenna analyzer got a lot of exercise on this outing…
The first of our stations was a vertical Wolf River Coils antenna tapped for 17M connected to an Icom 7300 running SSB. This antenna has proven to be a powerhouse for portable ops on several POTA activations prior to this one.
The CW station consisted of an marvelous self-contained go-box with an Icom 7300, a power supply, an autotuner, and what looked to me like a UHF/VHF mobile. Batteries with solar panels powered the operation. And just for kicks, and, well, just because, this station also had an Elecraft KX2! Bands bounced between 20M and 40M.
A 15M yagi supported by a push-up mast on a tripod was the next big antenna superstar. This supplied the RF to a brand new, first-time-in-the-field Icom 705 using phone on SSB.
And finally, three wire antennas, including my homemade multiband endfed antenna, a 20M half-wave endfed antenna, and a 10M double bazooka, were strung up in the swamp. These ran to two Yaesu FT-891 rigs for switching between 10M, 20M, 40M, and 80M SSB phone.
So how did we make out? Well, remember the fish that got away? Not quite that bad. But we had a really rough time with propagation. *ALL OF US*. Most people who were interested in POTA acquired their 10 qsos needed to get their point. But these were very hard fought. Otherwise, it felt like an RF dead zone. Given the vast array of set-ups, I just have to chalk it up to…wait for it… “band conditions“.
But much more importantly, radio brought us together once again. To share in this weird thing we all enjoy. Letting us indulge in showing off our gear, our skills, our ingenuity. And allowing us to be around people simply for the sake of being around people. For me, radio is a strong uniting force, bringing minds together in the setting of the fierce independence of an untethered, grid-free station. And us magicians that can harness the airwaves, that can channel the conversations across the skies, that can propagate communication, well, I believe we are indeed a very special group.
KM1NDY (“just a dreamer”)