Amarillo Field Day 2006

Thanks to Scott, N5SM, for these four photos from the Amarillo Field Day activities at the Discovery Center!

Joe Szczubelek, K9DMV, provided us with the following information regarding the Amarillo event: As you can see from the photos we were in a very exposed location (but easily accessible to anyone who came by) without a "hard" roof. It was decided to close down our station around 8:00 PM before we got into trouble with the weather. We heard claps of thunder around 6:30 PM, kept our eyes on the sky, and kept operating. Field day station W5WX checked into the 3933 net on Saturday nite with N5AE to tie into our local emergency HF net. It later became clear that this first storm would miss us and we had dodged the bullet. Later around 2:00 AM a very strong line of thunderstorms with powerful wind gusts moved through the area making the "close down" a good decision. We operated SSB, CW, and FM. A city FEMA representative stopped by and observed.

For the HF bands our equipment was:

Yaesu FT-990; Yaesu FT-597; Icom - 740; Icom -718

We used a military surplus AB-577 mast that was provided by Eddy Moke. This got the middle of 3 separate inverted vee dipole antennas for 20M, 40M and 80M up around 40 feet. We also used a ground mounted 3 band vertical for 20M / 15M/ and 10M. This antenna also worked very well. Maybe it was the nearby lake that helped. I felt that our dipoles worked well. Stations came back to us when called. The 40 meter dipole was used on 15 meters and made many contacts on this band. We had a dual band 144 / 440 radio hooked up to a dual band vertical on a Rohn mast up 25 feet above the ground. This gave us good local VHF communications.

Scott N5SM provided a large 6K generator that was run from the bed of his pickup truck. We also had a smaller hand carry 800 watt Honda generator (from N5HPJ) as backup. Either generator could easily power 2 radios operating at the same time. The large 6K generator was quite on all bands. The Honda created a little RFI (about S3) on 20 meters only. Signals were strong on 20 meters and this was not really noticed.

All participants had fun, got home safely, and used this exercise as a great learning experience. It was also fun sharing fellowship with many hams who stopped by and offered encouragement. A big thank you for the hams who donated time, equipment, and odds and ends to make this exercise a success - you know who you are. Can't wait till next year.

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