We are continuing to make progress on our preparation for VHF+ Operations at Winter Field Day (WFD) 2020. We had a lot of fun on the VHF+ bands at WFD 2019 and we are planning to add some more bands for our operation this year.
New Winter Field Day VHF+ Mast
Jamey, AC1DC an I put together a new mast and antennas for the VHF+ bands this weekend. Our new mast comes from Max-Gain Systems. It is a little over 30 ft high and is guyed at 2 levels. We can rotate the mast at the base using the arm-strong method. We’ll be feeding the mast with LMR-600 coax.
Our VHF+ mast holds yagi antennas for the 23cm, 33cm, and 1.25m bands.
Jerry, K1OKD and I assembled a new 220 MHz Yagi for this setup last weekend. We are using rear-mounted yagis on our mast to simplify mounting and feedline connections and to keep the overall weight on the mast at a reasonable level.
With 50 – 100w in, these antennas will produce 450 – 2500 watts of effective radiated power.
Transverters and Transceivers
The Transverters for our VHF+ station have also arrived from Q5 Signal. The unit shown above is for the 33cm (902 MHz) band.
Transverters upconvert transmitted and downconvert received signals from one frequency band to another (ex. from the 33cm band to the 28 Mhz or the 10m Band). They also typically include a power amplifier stage that generates 25w – 50w of output power on the target band.
Our station will use transverters along with an Elecraft KX3 Transceiver to put us on three VHF+ bands as well as to add an additional 100W HF Transceiver to our WFD Setup. We will also have an Icom IC-9100 Transceiver to cover the HF, 6m, 2m, 70cm, and 23cm bands.
The Winter Field Day Team is planning some station testing sessions in the near future to get all of our HF and VHF+ rigs ready. All Nashua Area Radio Society Members are invited to join us for these sessions to learn more about the equipment that we use at Field Day. We’ll post information in our Field Day Forum and on our Calendar as these sessions are scheduled.
You can read more about our plans for Winter Field Day 2020 in Jerry’s article here on our Blog.
See you at Winter Field Day!
Fred, AB1OC