Field Day 2017 is but a memory for us now. Dave, K1DLM, our Field Day Chairman, and the entire Field Day team did a great job with putting together our Field Day operation this year.
We are still adding up our score and collecting pictures and video from everyone. I wanted to get something out quickly so that we could begin to enjoy some of the memories. So here is my quick Sights from Field Day 2017….
We did a fantastic job on publicity this year…
and the parking lot was full of visitors and members on Saturday and Sunday.
Our updated Public Information Tent was a hot spot for our many visitors (over 45 visitors signed our guest register)!
The ARRL “brass” came out early to congratulate Dave, K1DLM our Field Day Chairman, and to tour our site.
The food was unbelievably good – thanks, Valerie!!! And the N1FD cafe’ was a hot-spot as usual.
Site setup at Hollis-Brookline High School began with the 40M V-Beam.
The tower team began on the lower field by setting up the new 60 ft. tower.
The 40M V-beam was awesome as ever and went up in record time…
and our new 60 ft. tower was a sight to behold!
We built lots of stations – 3 SSB, 3 CW, a RTTY/PSK Digital Station, a GOTA station, a 6M Station with a new yagi, and a computer controller Satellite Station. We also setup a 2M/70cm Go Kit for talk-in and APRS demos. All totaled, we had 10 transmitters on the air! Our exchange was 7A NH.
We got our Solar-Battery bonus late on Saturday.
Everyone operated very hard and we made more contacts than last year!
Our CW operators were amazing again this year. Here’s Dennis banging out CW QSOs. Dave, KM3T even operated SO2R for a period – calling “CQ” and working contacts on both 20M and 40M CW at the same time! Gene, W3UA brought his CW skimmer and we set up an OCF dipole to provide on-site CW spots.
And the new generators worked flawlessly and were much easier to service.
Curtis, N1CMD ran our Satellite Station 2.0 and wowed everyone while making satellite contacts….
and our visitors got a kick out of seeing the computer controlled satellite antennas.
Team Finchum was in high gear as always – here’s Abby, AB1BY operating with her brother Connor, KC1GGX. It seemed like Abby was on every SSB station that I looked at all weekend long…
Our new SDR powered Digital Station worked well and we had lots of digital contacts using the antennas on the new 60 ft. tower.
The SDR-based GOTA station worked out super well. Ira, KC1EMJ was our GOTA coach and was busy on Saturday and Sunday introducing our guests and newly licensed members to “high-tech” Amateur Radio. We had many young people try Amateur Radio for the very first time on our GOTA station.
We operated the two SDRs for the Digital and GOTA stations remotely over a coax cable data link between the upper and lower fields. Pierce, K1FOP and Dave, K1DLM put together this high-tech setup and the underpinning data networking system.
Did I mention that we operated hard making lots of QSOs?…
There were Drone sighting all weekend long…
and Desmond, WK1V got some amazing video from the air.
It was a lot of fun operating as N1FD, 7A NH!
Anita, AB1QB, our scoring chairman is still working on tallying up our score but it will be higher than last year.
Please take a minute and send me any photos or video that you have from Field Day 2017. We’ll be producing a video of all of the fun for the Field Day 2017 Recap at our club meeting on July 11th. Don’t miss it!
Fred, AB1OC
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