Field Day 2012

John and Vicky on PSK

K3LMR on the Fred Box

K3VOX on the Swan 500 working them on 40!

K3PG operating CW

Shooting the tree

I did field day with the local club and got some good antenna comparisons too this weekend.  We had two OCF doublets.  One 150ft overall length up in some tall trees at 45 ft or so.  It played well and was good on 75/80M  Another one was a kludge OCF that started out as a QRP port kit for 30M as a dipole but the guy also had a 50ft or so wire so we added that to one side and put the center on a large tripod with some fiberglass poles added to it to maybe 25 ft and the ends coming down to some 9ft step ladders.  This was still pretty decent on 40 and 20 but would not 'talk' on 80 at all.  S9 signals would not answer.  Another station had a nice QRP portable inverted "L" of maybe 65 ft or so and a single (poor) grnd rod.  Surprising to me how well it did on 80 and it worked well on 40 and 'OK' on 20.  Other antennas were a low G5RV at 20 ft and a low B&W folded broadband dipole which were both poor on 80 but were OK NVIS on 40 and 20.  Only a few stations were worked on 15 and NONE on 10M .  So much for the sunspots on this cycle I guess!