The 2019 Thirteen Colonies Special Event begins today! There are stations in each of the states that grew from the original Thirteen Colonies plus two bonus stations – WM3PEN in Philadelphia, PA an…
K2K New Hamshire will be operating all modes on 160m – 6m (except for 60m) and on Satellites as well. We’ll have a QRP station (K2K/QRP) as well.
The 2019 Thirteen Colonies Special Event begins today. Get on the air and work all Thirteen Colonies as K2A – K2M and don’t forget the two bonus stations – WM3PEN and GB13COL. Have fun!
We will have lots of great activities for folks who are interested in operating on the VHF and above bands at Field Day 2019. Here are some of the activities that we’ll be doing:
Satellite Contacts using a Portable Computer Controlled Satellite Stations
Weak Signal SSB, CW, and FT8 Contacts on 6m, 2m, and 70cm
Fox Hunting using Radio Direction Finding (RDF) to find hidden 2m Radio Transmitters
Satellite Station, VHF+ Station, and Fox Hunting Training
Satellites at Field Day
Field Day 2019 Satellite Passes – Saturday
We will have a lot of great satellite passes during Field Day this year! The table above shows a summary for Saturday. Sunday passes are also very good! You can see view the passes and associated details in our 2019 Field Day Satellite Pass Book.
We are planning a serious VHF+ effort at Field Day 2019. We will be putting up a dedicated 40 ft tower with yagis, low-loss feedlines, and preamps for the 6m, 2m, and 70cm bands.
We will have several “Foxes” out during Field Day 2019. Fox Hunting (locating hidden transmitters using Radio Direction Finding) is a great way sharpen your RDF skills and have fun.
Training, Training, Training
Field Day Satellite Training
We will be offering training on all of these activities at the start of Field Day 2019. Training will begin at 11 am at the VHF+/Satellite Station Tent. We will cover Satellite Operating, VHF+ Operating, and Fox Hunting then.
Fox Hunting Training at Field Day
It might be worth coming to Field Day 2019 just for the training – Don’t Miss It!
What goes into an 11A Field Day? Well, for starters, 13 stations! We got together at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH a couple of weekends ago to set up ALL of our Field Day stations at once and test them together. Here’s a rundown of the final Field Day Station Test setup:
Three CW Stations
Three SSB Stations
Three Digital Stations
A 160m All Mode Station
A VHF+ All Mode Station for 6m, 2m, and 70cm
A “Free” Satellite Station
A GOTA Station
Each station has a Laptop Computer with one or more monitors running the N1MM+ logger in a networked configuration. We also had the Scoreboard computer (Anita’s Surface Pro) running for the test.
Jon, AC1EV took the lead on getting the CW stations set up and working. This was true “CW Heaven”!
SSB Station Testing Fun
Scott, NE1RD spent the day sorting out our three SSB stations. We even got Voice Keying to work!
Digital Station Testing
Dave, K1DLM and Charlie, W1CBD spent the day getting our three Digital Stations to work with four FlexRadio SDRs. Anita, AB1QB took care of our WSJT-X, RTTY, and PSK configurations for the Digital Stations. Dave also got the GOTA SDR station working in his “spare time”.
160m All Mode Station Test
I spent my day working on the 160m All Mode and the VHF+ Stations. These stations were a challenge because they needed to run SSB, CW, and WSJT-X together with N1MM+. We finally found a software combination that worked for all of this.
Computer Controlled Satellite Station
Fortunately for me, our Portable Computer Controlled Satellite Station was already set up and ready to go. This is a Mac-based station and we’ll be transferring our satellite contacts into the N1MM+ Windows world via an ADIF file transfer.
160m All Mode Station Main N1MM+ Monitor
It took all of us pretty much an entire day (and most of an evening) to get all of this working correctly. In the end, we made a bunch of test contacts and confirmed that all 13 computers kept the correct logs and scores. With this done, we are all set for Field Day 2019!
