Category Archives: Featured

This category is for featured articles that we want to include in the sidebars and other areas on our website.

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air

Field Day Operators Take Note – 10m and 6m are Open

I spent a little time this morning evaluating the band conditions on 10m and 6m in preparation for our upcoming Field Day Operations this weekend. To try for an “apples to apples” test, I used the antennas here with FT8 at 10 W input power. Our field day setup will have 1/2 the number of elements as we have here but we will be running 100 W so I believe the is to be a reasonable test. The beam heading for my tests was 260 degrees – the same as we will be using for Field Day.

As you can see from the image above, 10m was open for a good portion of the USA at 9:30 am this morning local time.

FT8 QSO with North Dakota on 10m
FT8 QSO with North Dakota on 10m

I made quite a few QSOs on 10m including several to the western states.

6m Band Opening
6m Band Opening

The 6m Band was also wide open and I was able to make about 40 contacts this morning include several to California and Arizona.

The openings on 6m and 10m were most likely a result of E-skip propagation. You can see the current propagation conditions on these bands here.

Digital, CW, SSB, and 6m operators at Field Day take note – its important to take advantage of openings on 10m and 6m during Field Day. These bands were not only open for FT8 digital but I am sure they supported SSB and CW contacts as well.

Fred, AB1OC

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Space

International Space Station Could be Active for ARRL Field Day

The folks who are operating our satellite station during Field Day this weekend will want to be sure to monitor for possible crew activity from the ISS. The following is a summary of the ISS passes at our Field Day site:

DateTimeAzimuth Elevation
Rise: 2018/06/23 13:01:30 305.2 0.0
Max: 2018/06/23 13:06:40 17.8 24.6
Set: 2018/06/23 13:11:47 89.2 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/23 14:37:59 302.2 0.0
Max: 2018/06/23 14:43:25 210.2 75.3
Set: 2018/06/2314:48:45 129.0 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/23 16:15:10 282.3 0.0
Max: 2018/06/23 16:19:19 231.5 9.1
Set: 2018/06/23 16:23:25 180.7 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 07:18:28 202.10.0
Max: 2018/06/24 07:23:25 134.1 21.3
Set: 2018/06/2407:28:25 66.9 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 08:54:20 248.1 0.1
Max: 2018/06/2408:59:41332.4 51.3
Set: 2018/06/24 09:05:05 54.9 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 10:31:43283.5 0.0
Max: 2018/06/24 10:36:42351.0 19.2
Set: 2018/06/24 10:41:4258.10.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 12:09:01 303.1 0.1
Max: 2018/06/24 12:14:03 11.720.1
Set: 2018/06/24 12:19:03 79.4 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 13:45:36 304.7 0.0
Max: 2018/06/24 13:51:01 31.6 61.0
Set: 2018/06/24 13:56:22 116.1 0.0
Featured, Field Day, General

Help with Water, Cookies, and Overnight Snacks

2 Comments

My XYL Valerie has volunteered to organize all the meals for field day this year.  Since we starting the setup process early, there are more meals to accommodate than usual but we’ve maintained the same meal plan price as previous years.  As a result, we’re behind on funds and we could use some help with cookies and overnight snacks for operators.  We also could use some more bottled water.  If you’re able to assist, please let me know.  [email protected] is my email.  Thanks & look forward to seeing everyone at the event!