Tag Archives: Field Day

Social Distancing Field Day at AB1QB-AB1OC

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 AB1OC Field Day 2020
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.

AB1QB AB1OC Field Day 2020
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.

AB1QB AB1OC Field Day 2020
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.

AB1QB AB1OC Field Day 2020
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.

AB1QB AB1OC Field Day 2020
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

AB1QB AB1OC Field Day 2020
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 messaging activity hosted by Sterling, AK1K
  • 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.

Fred, AB1OC

Winter Field Day 2020 Results

The results from 2020 Winter Field Day are in. The Nashua Area Radio Society was #2 overall as well as in the outdoor category.

Winter Field Day 2020 Results
2020 Winter Field Day Results

As was the case last year, the scores are all about multipliers which is derived from the number of active bands and modes that a station has.

WFD 2020 Operations On Saturday Afternoon
WFD 2020 Operations On Saturday Afternoon

You can read more about our WFD 2020 operation here.

Fred, AB1OC

Winter Field Day Roving on VHF+ Bands

This year we added a new activity,  VHF+ Winter Field Day Roving.  This involved mobile operators contacting Winter Field Day stations from outside of any Winter Field Day station.

We were able to make contacts on all of the above bands using Phone, Digital, and CW.  Many of the contacts were our first on the bands.

We used transceivers for Winter Field Day Roving to operate on the following VHF bands: 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm and 23cm.  We used a laptop running Fldigi to add Digital and CW modes to Phone mode.

Thanks to Randall, N1KRB and Miguel, KC1LKO for operating as Rovers for Winter Field Day.

Winter Field Day Rover Test
Winter Field Day Rover Test

Thanks to Jerry, K1OKD and Jon, AC1EV for testing the Rover hardware and software prior to Winter Field Day.

Anita, AB1QB

 

 

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide