{"id":804,"date":"2012-08-30T21:42:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T01:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecngx342.inmotionhosting.com\/~hcraor5\/\/?p=804"},"modified":"2012-08-30T21:42:53","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T01:42:53","slug":"2012-field-day-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/?p=804","title":{"rendered":"2012 Field Day Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last June Hampden County Radio Association once again participated in the annual ARRL Field Day event. This year we added an additional transmitter, which put us in the 8A category. As usual, the event was an overall success with our members and visitors having a great time while operating and enjoying each other\u2019s company.<\/p>\n

And like every field day, the successes were accompanied by a few problems that no doubt affected our overall score and morale for a short time during the event.\u00a0 However, solving those problems was an excellent test of our ability to troubleshoot problems under pressure.\u00a0 Although there were problems with the antenna for the 15 meter and 20 meter SSB station, the 40 meter SSB station led by band captain Jeff \u2013 NT1K set an all time record for points for that station at Field Day and helped pick up the slack while others worked to get the other stations back online.\u00a0 Jeff even brought in operators from New Hampshire and New York.<\/p>\n

Nick \u2013 N1MAZ picked up the responsibility for the wireless network this year and a combination of Nick\u2019s excellent support and operators getting more comfortable with the N1MM logging software gave us our most successful year using that combo to network all of the stations together.\u00a0 During Jose \u2013 N4BAA\u2019s late night visit, it was quite fun to see operator\u2019s names in the log change to \u201cCW GOD\u201d, \u201cNorth Korea\u201d & \u201cCW is lame\u201d.\u00a0 Nothing like a little humor at 1am to help wake you up and keep working stations!<\/p>\n

Back again this year was Jim \u2013 NN1Y with new assistant Mike \u2013 KB1VHS keeping everyone well fed and happy.\u00a0 The pavilion provided a great place for everyone to take a break from the dits, dahs and static and catch up with each other over some great food and drinks.<\/p>\n

Dianne – KB1KST graciously volunteered to coach the WB1Z GOTA station and was able to get a few new operators on the air as well as some folks who aren\u2019t so new!<\/p>\n

And it wouldn\u2019t be a Field Day in New England with out some summer boomers moving through.\u00a0 Friday afternoon brought some lightening as storms to the south of us moved through.\u00a0 And again on Saturday, big storms blew in and stations were shut down until it was again safe to operate.<\/p>\n

The big change at Field Day this year was the use of HF triplexers and a reduction in the number necessary towers.\u00a0 What did we learn?\u00a0 That the triplexers work great, but that if one antenna has problems, it affects more than one station!\u00a0 What did we really learn?\u00a0 Don\u2019t have antenna problems!<\/p>\n

No field day summary is complete without some ideas for next year.\u00a0 The big one is probably better distributed management, specifically with the towers.\u00a0 Some have suggested tower teams consisting of several workers and a tower manager for each tower.\u00a0 Managers would be experienced with installing AB-577 tower and the antenna going on top of it and would then direct the rest of their team on how to put the tower and antenna together in the proper and safest manner. Others have suggested fewer stations.\u00a0 It has also suggested that we focus less on bonus points and put more focus everyone operating as well as making sure that volunteers with non-radio related jobs get plenty of time to operate.\u00a0 All of these boil down to management and we\u2019ll make sure to take them all into consideration for next year.<\/p>\n

A huge thank you to everyone who helped make field day a fun, educational and radio filled event.\u00a0 It\u2019s the biggest event in our club each year and without everyone\u2019s help we wouldn\u2019t be able to pull off such a large operation that brings new hams into the hobby each year.<\/p>\n

See you in June 2013!<\/p>\n

Matt \u2013 W1MSW<\/p>\n

Here is our score summary:<\/p>\n

Score Summary:
\nCW \u00a0Digital \u00a0Phone \u00a0Total
\nTotal QSOs \u00a0 1253 \u00a0 \u00a0 36 \u00a0 \u00a01615
\nTotal Points \u00a0 2506 \u00a0 \u00a0 72 \u00a0 \u00a01615 \u00a0 4193<\/p>\n

Claimed Score = 8,386
\nBonus Points = 1850
\nTotal Points = 10236<\/p>\n

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Last June Hampden County Radio Association once again participated in the annual ARRL Field Day event. This year we added an additional transmitter, which put us in the 8A category. As usual, the event was an overall success with our members and visitors having a great time while operating and enjoying each other\u2019s company. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,43],"tags":[65,72,76,160,185,244,360,365],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-day","category-zero-beat","tag-ab577","tag-antenna","tag-arrl","tag-field-day-2","tag-hcra","tag-n1mm","tag-tower","tag-triplexer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}