Quick Field Day Update

Sure has been a busy month . . .
Here it is Friday before Field Day 2011, and I haven’t a thing on the web site talking about our plans. I guess we don’t need a lot of plans….
Our club station will operate again this year in the “1F” category as an EOC.
This location is actually returning to active duty as an ‘auxiliary EOC‘, that can serve as a backup for the operational centers at both MSFC and the Fox Army Hospital. We only have minimal equipment and antennas just now, so this category suits our needs. We mostly want to provide a place for our members to operate and get a taste of Field Day. No serious score-chasing here, but we will operate on whatever bands we find other stations that can hear us. We will also be looking for bonus points for contacts via satellite, packet email, ATV – whatever we can do. It will be fun, and an adventure. Our main air-conditioning unit is still down, but we have obtained a small portable unit which should take the edge off the heat. Considering most Field Day operations are conducted outdoors, having a solid roof that sheds rain will be a good thing.

Anyway, WA4NZD will be active on the ham bands this weekend – so give us a call if you hear us. Or stop by and say howdy if you can. We will try to keep an ear to the 147.100 repeater for talk-in.

Thanks  /;^)

6m antenna is ready

Wednesday afternoon I took some more time to visit the club station at Bldg 4622, and finish the connections for the 6 meter antenna.

Our 5 element 50 MHz antenna on the rotor deck

The coax is secured and weatherproofed, the rotor and thrust bearing is intact. Inside you can see my Yaesu FT-897D from home, along with my MFJ antenna analyzer. The SWR is a respectable 1.8:1 at a resonant frequency of 50.150 … I called CQ on 50.125, but had no response. A short time later tho I did hear someone else, and moved the antenna rotor to improve the signal. I had a brief chat with Ed – K2LCK, who lives on Long Island in New York (FN30)… only 850 miles or so with 50 watts – I thought that a good indicator of success.

FT-897D listening on 50.125 MHz

Even tho I messed up on the date, and we missed the ARRL June VHF Sweepstakes – there is a SMIRK contest this weekend on 6 meters. I came out Saturday morning about 8am, but have only worked two stations so far. First was Barry – KJ4UGO, over in Trinity, AL (EM64). Then just now I worked Don – KC2AQU in Tuckerton, NJ (FM29). I have heard some others down in the noise today, so I suspect the band is gonna be up and down. I may come back out later this afternoon or evening and listen some more.

There is currently some undetermined issue with my outbound email, so any information I sent out last night about my activities here today have not made it to the YahooGroup. Anyway, I’ll try to listen on the 147.100 repeater this afternoon in case anyone is trying to get me there. You can try me on my cell phone once I leave here for lunch, but I’m using it here as a modem to get on the internet to post this…

Thanks  /;^)

My Bad : VHF QSO Party was last weekend ..

Oops – I slipped a week there somewhere and missed the contest. Arrrrrgh !.

Well at least I got the rotor under the beam, and connected to the controller.
That is a good thing because there is actually a different contest this weekend. This one is even a 6 meter contest – SMIRK !! SMIRK.ORG

I’ll post more on this shortly, but wanted to announce my mistake in case anyone was planning to participate, or even just to watch. This SMIRK event runs from 7 pm CDT Friday evening, thru 7 pm Sunday evening.
But don’t just take my word, go check that website.
Apparently I am not always paying attention.
Maybe . . . ?

Thanks  /;^)

Contest Award !!!

A little surprise arrived in the mailbox yesterday …

MARC takes First Place in Alabama Contest

Considering this is the first contest entry submitted by this club in over a decade, this is a nice accomplishment. Congratulations to our operators who overpowered several configuration challenges and endured the opressive heat to show ourselves and the world that we seriously enjoy this radio sport .!.
[ WB5RMG, N5AYD, K4RGG, KO4FV, & (soon-to-be-licensed) Andy ! ]
Of course, it helped that we had really great propagation on 50 MHz….
Looking back to last year’s post, I have extracted this breakdown by band :

50 MHz : 93 contacts - 55 grids
144 MHz : 12 contacts - 3 grids
222 MHz : 1 contact - 1 grid
432 MHz : 3 contacts - 3 grids
Total = 114 contacts - 62 multipliers # 7626 points

Just think of what we oughta be able to do this year. I hope 6m is good again !
Last year we were barely trying, and Andrew didn’t even have his license yet !
Don’t forget – this event is coming up June 18 & 19th. Even if you can’t come out and help us get things ready – drop in over that weekend to say howdy, and see what this VHF contesting thing is like. Here is the letter from ARRL …..

Congratulations from the ARRL

(you can click to get a larger one to read the detail)

Even if you stay home and work only a few stations for the event, please submit your log. The contest doesn’t include repeater contacts, but even 2m FM QSOs on simplex can be included (do not use the National Calling Frequency 146.52). Most of the VHF contacts are on 144.200 USB, and 432.100 USB. For FM contacts you might listen on other standard simplex frequencies like 146.55 or 146.58 … All of my 220 contacts during these contests have been on FM, as that is all I have on that band. In 2009 at home, I took the award for 1st place in Alabama on 220 MHz with only 3 contacts ..!..

Give it a try, you just might have some fun…  /;^)

Don’t look now, but summer is here !

I don’t see how time can pass so quickly – I thought it was constrained by the speed of light, or something like that. There are some significant operating opportunities on the radio horizon, and I intend to participate one way or another. For this month (June), the VHF contest will be starting the 18th and the annual Field Day exercise will start the 25th… We had a really great time on 50 MHz last June VHF – but we need to work a little harder on Field Day this year.

Admittedly last month we were pre-empted by the tornadoes and resulting multi-day power outage that kept the base closed, and I was on a NASA trip to White Sands the month before that – but I have not been pushing as hard to keep things rolling as I coulda/shoulda been… I have so many ideas and project irons in the fire – it is scary sometimes. I’m seriously wanting/needing to find more participation and assistance with some of these projects. I know time is precious these days, and summer also brings vacations – BUT – this summer we have AC !

Tomorrow (Thr) will be the 1st Thr of the month again already – so it is meeting time. I’ll be over there no later than 4pm, and will hang around until at least 6pm, so please come by 4622 if you can. (Quick Maps here). We have a few things to discuss, one is an approaching Special Event opportunity.
In years past, this club has operated many special events – one in specific was to commemorate the launch of STS-1. WA4NZD made over 2000 contacts with over 30 different countries in a 2 day period. Here is the certificate :

MSFC Certificate for STS-1 Commemorative

There is discussion of a NASA Special Event operation to commemorate the launch of the final flight of the space shuttle, now that a date has been selected (early July). It would not be very smart of our club to commit to participating in this event, if we don’t have the support and participation of enough operators to actually do this.  Lets figure it out. We know better to jump in un-prepared.

Again, the meeting for June is tomorrow, June 2nd at 4pm, Bldg 4622.
We’ll be listening on the 147.100 repeater in case someone needs directions.
Come early, come late – just try to make it even if only for a few minutes.

Thanks  /;^)

VHF rotor update

Last week I found the time to look at the VHF rotor.
This is the one mounted on the antenna deck that we moved to the west side of the building. I believe it had  been used by KB5EZ in his meteor-scatter research, so the expectation was that it might still be usable. I removed the 4 bolts that held the motor to the deck, and took it inside to clean it up a bit.

testing the VHF rotor

After removing the leftover pieces of the control cable

STS133 – Discovery Launches !

Discovery is finally away, and has now met up with the ISS for a visit.

STS133 leaves Florida, heading for ISS. (Photo by NASA)

It seems like a long time ago that we ran the Special Event