We set up two masts...one a paint pole from Home Depot that sported the ubiquitous Radio Shack SWL antenna, made
up of 5-conductor rotator cable and a bargain when Radio Shack sold them out a coupla years ago for $3.95. We tuned this one
with a homebrew SWR meter and a hamfest special MFJ tiny tuner.
A second location
was served well by a New England QRP Afield antenna mast...we had two of these available made from
PVC pipe and other hardware. This one sported one of the N2CX 20-meter Gusher antennas.
You'll see Bill, K4AHK running contacts at this site above left on this page. Below right is the setup he used to
burn up the airwaves. It included an Emtech NW-20 running about 4 watts on battery, and a homebrew station box
that held a TenTec tuner-tuner, a speaker, and a Code Boy keyer board. He had a brand new set of homebrew Poor Man's Paddles from
QST housed on an Altoids tin complete with a custom solid steel weight inside.
Our third antenna location
(after all, we operated as a 3A setup) was a 10-meter up-in-the-tree
dipole put up by Jake, N4UY. Jake had both a GM-10 and GM-15 on site, but chose to concentrate on the
10-meter band and set up his station on a picnic table accordingly. N4UY is a believer in low-loss antenna leads...and once
again this year he came through in great style, using about a hundred feet of RG8U to carry his coupla watt signal
from his rig to the antenna. Jake's antenna launching methods are notable, too. He has a great big fishing sinker on the
end of his line and swings it around his head before letting go in much the same manner as David slew Goliath.
Below left you'll see Frank, WB4RVL, at the 10 meter station, enjoying himself but not making many
contacts because of the crazy propagation. Frank brought his Sierra and made a few contacts on that,
as well. In fact, NOVA-QRP encouraged members to bring their rigs and a power connector with pigtails and
use them in the Field Day efforts. Partially due to this approach (After all, Field Day is an
exercise, not a contest...tho some hams treat it as such...we worked one station that was running 39A) we
had two hams make their first on the air contact during our Field Day outing.
40 meter honors were upheld by the well-tested Elmer Radio SW-40+ of Al, WB4JJJ. This setup used
the North Georgia QRP Club's NoGaPig as a battery monitor, a homebrew SWR meter from Solid State Design.
A set of Poor Man's Paddles and a TicK Keyer (We substituted a PK-2 keyer the second day after
we got really, really tired of fooling with the TicK's speed control mess).
Setup began about 10 am on Saturday, June 24...and it took us a good two hours to get everything on the air. N4UY had worked
hard to obtain a special club callsign for NOVA-QRP...WA4MM...and the group elected him to
make the first contact using the new moniker...he did that well before the Field Day proceedings got underway..so
when 2:00 PM rolled around, we hooked up the batteries and went to work.
First thing we noticed was a lotta question marks being sent on the CW bands...We could hear a lotta station, quite
loud, but no one could hear us. For that matter, the loud stations apparently couldn't hear each other, either.
The problem was the propagation which was unsettled to say the least. Conditions improved during the
Field Day period and by Sunday noon, it was quite good and we worked as far west as
Oregon and California, and picked up a rare Nebraska (well, rare if you are QRP on the East Coast). And, on
Sunday, we worked W1FB on 40 meters, which was quite a thrill.
Next NoVaQRP Field Day 2000 Page