We’ve busy preparing for Winter Field Day 2020. We’re planning to expand our station coverage to include more bands above 6m.
We are planning on adding the 1.25m, 33cm, and 23cm bands to our Winter Field Day 2020 setup. Jamey, AC1DC and I put together a new mast to support Yagis for these new bands a few weeks back.
Rovers for New Bands
Jon, AC1EV and Jerry, K1OKD have been working on a Rover set up so that folks can make contacts on these new bands and help out all of the Winter Field Day stations in our area.
VHF+ Station Testing for Winter Field Day 2020
The first station that we put together (VHF #1) is based upon an Elecraft KX3/PX3 combination. We added an outboard 100W HF amplifier and two Tranverters to the radio to cover 160m-10m, 1.25m, and 33cm. We plan to use this station for VHF+ contacts during the daytime and for HF operations at night. All of our Winter Field Day Stations will have computers for logging and digital modes and they will all support Phone, CW, and Digital modes. Also, we will be using networked N1MM+ for logging at Winter Field Day.
The second station we put together (VHF #2) uses an Icom IC-9100 Transceiver and will cover the HF bands, 6m, 2m, 70cm, and 23cm. It will have a computer-controlled satellite setup that uses a Mac Laptop for tracking as well as a windows computer for logging, digital modes, and CW. The IC-9100 has 100w out on the HF Bands, 6m, and 2m as well as 70w output on the 70cm band – plenty of power for Winter Field Day. The 23cm side of the IC-9100 does 10w out so we’ve added a 100w amplifier for this band. The combination of the amp and the high-gain 23cm antenna that we are using will make our Effective Radiated Power (ERP) on 23cm in excess of 2,000w.
Thanks to some great work by Jon, Jerry, Jamey, and Anita our two most complex stations are ready to go. We will be testing our 3 remaining HF station including one which supports 160m in the near future.
We hope that you’ll join us for some operating fun at Winter Field Day! You can sign-up for operating, roving, and/or station set up at Winter Field Day 2020 here.
Fred, AB1OC