Field Day 2018 Most Successful In Memory
- 22 July 2018
- West Georgia Amateur Radio Society
West Georgia Amateur Radio Society had the most successful Field Days in memory! Operating as class 4F, which allows four HF stations plus a bonus GOTA (Get-On-The-Air) station, we exceeded 1700 points, about 400 points more than last year! In reality, we were operating 3F, as 10-meters had no activity and that station made no contacts, but we identified as 4F during the event because we were hoping there might be some activity on the 10 meter band.
The club set up Saturday morning, installing antennas made by the club two years ago, all custom-cut dipoles for each operating band (80, 40, 20, and 15). We held a class on antenna building and constructed a 10 meter antenna with parts Wayne (KM4BYH) had on hand, which we used on our GOTA station.
Debbie (KM4BYH - XYL) generously handled cooking and setting up food for the crew, so we were well-fed and ready to go when the starting bell rang!
All antennas tuned up well on their respective bands and conditions were good from the very start! All stations were manned at the beginning, and with the exception of the 10 meter band station, stations were manned for our entire time of operation - Noon Sunday.
We had a good turnout amongst younger people, having all stations operated by under-eighteen year olds! Paige (KN4GHU) was licensed since last field day, so could have operated GOTA, but she and Brian (KM4UPX) were teaming up on the 15 meter band.
Additionally, we had four other teens at the event, who operated on the 20,40, and 80 meter bands under the supervision of appropriately licensed operators. Tim (K4DVJ) had Christian and Aiden working radios or logging well into the night-time hours, while David (KN4EYR) had Riley and Andrew on the radios as well. It was great to see so many non-hams and young people engaged! The irony is, we could have mopped up on GOTA as well, with all those qualified to operated on site.
Blake (N4BWR) did a brief presentation on Satellite communications and attempted to make contact during the one rather poor pass. While he did manage to pick up the satellite and transmit to it, the number of people making attempts created too much of a pile-up to pull off a contact during the short window. Still, it was interesting to experience and ginned up more interest for next year!
We'll have the list of all those who came out and operated, helped setup, and generally made this event a success, very soon!
