AC1FX Field Day – The Shack
My shack is more of a secretary desk of a shack-in- the-box. But it’s not the shack so much as the radio right. This is what I used for Field Day at AC1FX this year.
I have an Icom 7300 running 100W and I connected it to my laptop to log my contacts.
The Antenna
They say the antenna is the most important part of any setup. I’d go as far as maybe half along with the radio. My antenna is a 7 band Off Center Fed (OCF dipole). It’s only up 35 feet so it’s only a half-wave above the ground on 20M.
Retrospect
I’m writing this after the fact so my hindsight is clearer. I had a great time this year. Even though I think I made more contacts with the Club last year, being able to talk to other home class (1D) stations made up for it. I operated on in HF SSB mostly on 80 and 40 Saturday night and 10M on Sunday. For me, 80 and 40 were open to Penn and New York, while Sunday 10M was more open to Ohio and Illinois. My original plan was to try to sit on a frequency and do a run. That seemed to work well for others but I found out they had higher power output and higher or more directional antennas. I sat on 28.460 around noon today and picked up 6 QSOs but they were relatively local. I then went on search and pounce and had so much fun seeing what was out there. My most surprising contact was N3FJP of software fame. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was using N1MM+ for my logger.
Improvements
Just a few things I would like to do for next time :
- If I could get my dipole up to 66 ft it would at least be a ½ wave over the ground on 40M.
- Maybe put up my old Cushcraft R8 vertical and see how that goes.
- Practice CW more. It seems like they were having fun at the bottom of the bands but the fast pace of a contest and my lack of speed were incompatible.
- Do more digital. Although for me this year talking to people did seem fun.
If you worked field day and are a NARS member don’t forget to add the full club name (Nashua Area Radio Society) in your entry. See this link for details.
73,
Jeff, AC1FX