Field Day 2021~working with W7CXX Collins Aerospace Radio Group

 

I had been thinking I needed a change for Field Day. Besides last year (COVID), I had been the "CW guy" for the local club for several years. I didn't know if I wanted to go on my own and go up to the mountains or what. Just at that time, I was asked to participate with the Hurricane Test Mesa group (W7CXX Collins Aerospace). It was just what I needed to help make the decision.

Before start time:

I would be working with Jack, WA7LNW who runs the Hurricane site and Jim, K5JCA who is an engineer out there. I knew them both from before from different sides of ham radio. There were also a couple of others from their team in the group. We made a few plans and talked about some of the details leading up to the day.

I had never visited the test mesa--it's a private area and you can't just drive up whenever you'd like. I was going to go up and get familiar with the site, radios, setup, etc. but never made it up there before actual Field Day.

The morning of Field Day though, I went up and met Jack and he had a friend, Ron, WA7NAH, who
was joining in from AZ as well. We went on in and checked out some of the site before going to the actual radio room. The view of the area up there was really amazing, they have a wonderful setup and are really lucky to have such a place and for it to be sponsored by the company.

We decided we would be 2D (2 transmitters in a permanent setup) UT for Field Day. Jack was extremely generous and allowed me to have the good station and work all I wanted on it. Jack is more experienced than I am and faster on CW, so we could have done even better had he taken the station for the duration, it was kind of him to allow me the spot.

The other station was set for phone, although we tried to setup a few antennas for it beforehand, one was having trouble so really it was just a 40m station when the time came.

We had a couple of ARRL visitors to the site including Pat, N7PAT who had just recently won the election to be the next Utah Section Manager.

Time to start!

I started running on CW on 20m on the station with the hex beam, using an Elecraft K3. We used N1MM contest software for logging and also it has macros for sending CW which allows for a more efficient exchange although a real key is still needed at times as well.

It wasn't long into the run that our visitors were ready to leave and wanted a picture--of course I had to stop the run to turn around and have a few pics taken, and then right back at it.

The only real personal goal I had was to beat any previous personal bests for operating, but that wasn't going to be a problem at all since never before had I stayed overnight for an entire FD time period. The bands were good, and contacts came in fairly quickly. I ran at 25 wpm pretty much the whole time. I can go a bit faster, but there are lots of people who won't answer when you start going faster than that.

Jack had a previous obligation and had to leave for quite a while during the afternoon. I took a good break around dinner time. We had plenty of food. I made a beef stew that was a first time for me, but it turned out ok.

Looking back I probably took longer breaks than I needed and could have done better. When things got slower running, I would switch to search and pounce to get all those other stations running and not turning the dial. I would try a few other bands, tried the other antennas we had, etc.

We had a few operators on the phone station, but we didn't get a whole lot of contacts on it. Jack got back and had some great runs--and both of the different stations. I got the chance to Elmer Jim, KD7MNS, a bit on his first HF contacts, which was fun. He did great and really didn't need help at all. Unfortunately he couldn't stay long.

As we got into the evening, Jim K5JCA and Ron WA7NAH sacked out for a while. Jack stayed and

worked some more CW. At about 3am I decided it was time to get some rest. I went into the back of the pickup and laid down. I went out fast. I got back up at about 5:30am with the sun just starting to come up. I took some pics and went back in. Jim was back up and Jack was still at it.

We did try some digital for a little while. Digital almost feels like cheating because the computer does almost all the work and there's just a click every now and again. Jack went to lay down after a while, though I don't think he was out even an hour before coming back.

Getting near the end, I was happy with my progress and took some pictures and video. However, as it got within the last hour, I noticed that we could reach a new benchmark if I helped out so I got back on and started making some more contacts. Jack made the last one seconds before the end.

After all was said and done, we had 1,403 contacts. I personally beat my previous personal best by  far, and ended up with 806 contacts. We also had a number of DX contacts. In an odd propagation fluke, I had Sweden and Russia one right after the other sneak in there.

We had all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and most of the Canadian provinces (we missed 3 of them). I was very pleased with the result, I hope all the other guys were as well. I was a great experience and I'm grateful I could be a part of it.

Video of Field Day 2021