Field Day 2020 (at Home) Working as 1E (Emergency Power)

Field Day 2020 1E UT

In the past few years I have gone with the club (Dixie Amateur Radio Club) and been the primary CW operator. Before that, I would go to the field and setup my own station, usually as 1B and qrp, which is always a challenge. This year I had just gotten back from traveling, it was getting HOT down here in the desert, so I decided it was time to see how long and well I could run my home station on emergency power. I'm glad I did it, but in the future I think I will always be out in the field unless my health prevents it.

Setup:
There wasn't a ton to get ready, just power mostly. I planned on running from solar and batteries to start with (5 qso's required for the Natural Power bonus). I got my two solar panels out a few days before and setup to make sure all was still working. I have two deep-cycle batteries tied together in parallel, so double the capacity, same voltage, hooked up to an inverter and control charger.

Then I would switch over to a small Honda EU2000i generator, which I've had and used, but never for longer than a couple of hours, so I wanted to see how long it would go. In preparation for a long day, I had three gas cans ready, all different sizes, 5 gal, 2.5 gal and 1.25 gal. I also tested the generator and it was running fine, but I'm glad I tested it since I plugged in the radio and it wouldn't turn on--it turns out with the choke left on from starting it, it couldn't give the radio the juice needed to turn on. Once I saw that and let it run regularly, no problems at all.

Solar generator connected to panels

Yaesu 991A

Other items for preparation included lots of water to drink, some food, checking the logging (I use N3FJP's programs for everything), and just positioning and CW operating comfort, etc. For equipment I would be using my home station, which is a Yaesu 991A for the transceiver, a BY-2 Bencher key, a DX Engineering 43ft vertical antenna with lots of radials at all 100 watts (including the solar time). While, of course, if I were to do just solar and batteries, I would use less wattage, being QRP (low power) to prolong the time I could run on my batteries. I wasn't planning on being on batteries all day so stayed at 100 watts for all of Field Day.

Things I did NOT do as part of Field Day. I did not cut the commercial power to the building. My shack is in a separate garage as an outbuilding which has air conditioning. In an actual emergency I would either have to power the air conditioning or just leave it off, which I did not do for this Field Day--our high was 103 degrees. I also ran the computer off of the commercial power, since I didn't need it for making contacts, only logging. Also, I don't run the station 24 hours. I have church responsibilities early in the morning on Sunday, so I don't go all night and into the next day. Really it's about a 12-hour event for me.

Operation:
In Utah, 18:00 UTC start time means noon. My goals for the day were to get as many contacts as possible, of course, along with as many bonus points I could qualify for as a 1E station. But as far as specifics, I was hoping to get 250 contacts, but I did not feel I needed that number to be successful. I had reached 200 with the club the year before I believe. The first thing I did was copy the ARRL Field Day message from W1AW on CW for that bonus. I will openly admit I listened to it a second time to fill in a couple of gaps. It's nice that they send it before the time actually starts so once you're in operation you don't have to stop to copy the message. I started as I normally do, which is S&P (search and pounce), meaning I go find a frequency with someone calling CQ and answer to try and get them.

Honda eu2000i

As mentioned before, I started on the solar setup. I thought I would just stop after five contacts and switch, but things were going well so I just kept going--besides I wouldn't have a power advantage to switching since I was at 100 watts already. It was just over two hours that I paused to check how things were going and the voltage, etc. on the generator. While the voltage had indeed dropped a few decimal points. I had 46 total contacts and 27 sections filled on the map using solar power. Not bad, not great either, but as a QRP station there were Field Days where that would be my total for the day. I was on 20 meters almost the entire time. The band was short in general, meaning I had a lot of stations in states closer to me, ones I would normally get on 40 meters, but I did have some others as well. I switched over to the generator.

I started a timer so I would know just how long the generator lasted running the radio at 100 watts with one tank of gas. The bands were full of course and it did lengthen out so I got more of the stations further away from me. I tried running for a while (staying on one frequency calling CQ and letting others answer me), which can be effective to increase your qso-per-hour rate. The challenge with running is first, not to get taken over by another, stronger station too close to your frequency and second, you'll have weak stations who hear you and call, but they can be very hard to pick out and it takes time to do it. I did that for a while, and then starting searching again. By the way, since the ARRL changed few rules for COVID-19, TONS of stations were 1D, meaning just at home on commercial power. The rule change is that they could contact each other for credits (which normally they can't). That changed Field Day quite a bit because the smaller, lower power stations aren't worked or maybe heard as much with so many stations at higher power using their beams. Also, each station could work on behalf of a club, when normally for the club to get credit  you have to be in certainly proximity. This was good because we got credit as an individual station and the club at the same time.

I continued operating, checking a few other bands to see if I could get stations on a variety of bands, and I did get a few, but the higher volume of possibilities was still on 20m for quite a while. I should say up to this point in all my Field Day experiences, I hand send all my CW. I could easily be using my logging program to send CW for me (and avoid most errors), but I enjoy the manual aspect of CW. That isn't to say I won't try it in the future, but for this day, still by hand.

Sun setting right when I took a break

Early evening I got a few calls from my Dad, KC7EC, in Idaho, who was getting on to have some experience on the radio. He was having trouble being heard. We got him tuned up (the main issue) and talked about technique for a bit. He ended up with a few contacts and some new experience on the radio.

I took a break at about 9pm, stretched my legs, went on the desk to see the sunset, and got something to eat. I was at about 180 contacts. The generator was still running on its first tank (6.5 hours or so and counting), which I thought was cool. Then went back at it for the last push of the evening.

For the end of my Field Day, I switched to 40 meters and tried 80 meters too. I only got a few on 80m, as my antenna isn't really meant to do well at those frequencies. I ended with a run on 40 meters and did quite well compared to earlier in the day. At about 11pm I decided I had had my fun and should get some rest. I ended with 253 contacts--I'm sure reaching my new goal had a lot to do with not continuing on. I did not have even close to a sweep of the sections, getting 67 but missing 17--lots in Canada I didn't get. I did get Alaska, Hawaii (or PAC for "Pacific") and a DX station--in the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. It was a lot of fun and successful for me. The generator was still going! I shut it off after running 9 hours without any fill up. I didn't run it until it stopped since I was going to bed.

Video from Field Day 2020

Results:

Thanks for reading!

73,
Mike ACØPR