Recently, we saw one of the best 6m openings between the United States and Japan that we have encountered here in New England. The image above shows contacts being made via the FT8 Digital Mode between Japan and the United States on June 18th, 2020 in the evening eastern time…
We’ve had a very good 6m Es Season this year. We’ve had almost daily openings to Europe and the Western United States. We recently came very close to a 6m opening from here in New England to Japan! The article shares information on contacts between the United States and Japan that were captured via PSK Reporter. The article above shares more about that opening.
Anita, AB1QB, and I will be operating from our home station for the first time ever during 2020 ARRL Field Day. We are going to be a two transmitter station on emergency power.
We are going to invite a few additional operators (mostly those in the NARS Student-Teacher Contest) to operate our station remotely during Field Day as well.
We all will be operating using Anita’s callsign, AB1QB from our station.
AB1QB-AB1OC Field Day Station
AB1QB Operating in Our Shack
We are going to be operating Field Day using two transmitters on the air at the same time. The first will be one of the radios in our main shack.
Operating via the AB1OC-AB1QB Gateway
Our second transmitter will be our Flex 6700 SDR operated over the network in our home. We will locate the control point for the second transmitter in our dining room so that we won’t interfere with each other when we are both operating in SSB mode.
N1MM+ Setup for Digital Operating during Field Day
We will be using a dual-display dashboard setup to make operating Digital during Field Day easy to use. We’ll be using our Flex Maestro to operate the SDR in our shack over our network.
Main Antenna Tower
Our HF antenna system for Field Day will be our main tower. We will be QRV on all Ham bands from 160m through 23cm.
New 6m Antenna
Anita is anxious to try out our new 6m antenna during Field Day. She hopes to make lots of contacts on 6m FT8/FT4 as well as on the other HF bands.
Emergency Power
Automatic Generator at AB1OC-AB1QB
The emergency power source for our station will be a 15 Kw whole house generator at our QTH. We will be operating off the power grid for the full Field Day period. The generator will also power the computers and everything else in our home during the Field Day operating period.
Planned Field Day Activities at Our Station
The Nashua Area Radio Society is planning lots of group activities in a Social Distancing format for our members during Field Day. Our plans include:
A public official and EMCOM official meeting via Zoom
A training session for the operators here at our Station prior to the start of Field Day on Saturday
Learning More About Field Day 2020…
We have done several Tech Nigh programs to help our members get ready for Field Day 2020 from their Home Stations. The Tech Night programs include:
Setting up and using the N1MM+ Logger
How-to Do Field Day At Home
Members who are logged in can view the videos and presentations for these Tech Nights on our Tech Night Page.
We are really looking forward to Field Day 2020 and operating from our home station for the first time during Field Day. We are also excited about the group activities that NARS is planning. To learn more about NARS’ Field Day plans, be sure to follow our Field Day Forum postings.
The 6m Band is one of my favorite bands. The combination of its unpredictability and the amazing openings that it can produce certainly makes 6m The Magic Band for me! Conditions on 6m were so good on Saturday that I almost worked a 6m VUCC by 11 pm on Saturday evening …
I had an amazing experience on the 6m Band this past weekend during the 2020 ARRL June VHF Contest. Among other this, I was able to work a VUCC on 6m using FT8/FT4 Digital in less than a day!
We experienced great 6m band openings for nearly the entire contest period here in New England. I was able to work station in Europe, the Caribean, and on the West Coast of the United States during the contest.
Operating During ARRL June VHF via the AB1OC-AB1QB Station Gateway
The article in the link above describes the station and software setup used during the contest and shares the results of our operations on 6m during the contest period.
You can read the entire story and see some information about how we used the station here as part of June VHF.
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