The result of Field Day 2015: due to various varying variables we had to relocate to the club shack at the very last minute. That turned out to be a blessing; because this part of Texas got way too much rain on Saturday. If we’d had Field Day at Kickapoo Cavern State Park we would all have been soaking wet 2 minutes into FD, and “enjoying” a wonderful bronchitis by now…
So thanks to our esteemed President, who has just added a new skill to his already impressive toolbox, we relocated to 1038C. But: in the spirit of Field Day we did run all equipment from the small generator. And that generator had a really good workout, so much so that it quit on us a few times – for no apparent reason. But thanks to our uninterruptible power supply, generously donated by K5QOW a while ago, our radio operations were never interrupted! Oh, and that new skill Jason learned? Predicting the future! 😉
Only a few folks got to operate; but they both had a blast. Mary KU5Z made numerous RTTY contacts; something she hadn’t done in a long time. And we did observe many other stations on RTTY this year, as opposed to years past. Always good for some extra fun!
KU5Z running RTTY on 20 meters (bad focus, sorry!)
We even made more than a dozen QSOs on 6 meters. It turns out that, after properly grounding all equipment in the shack, our Spiderbeam also works beautifully on 6 meters. German engineering, don’t underestimate it! And best of all: we had a QSO with member Roger K0YY in Denver, on 6 meters. Thanks Roger!
Because of the rain and lightning storm we were off-air for several hours; but all in all we made almost 400 QSOs (SSB and RTTY) in the few hours that remained. Probably our best effort ever! We could have used an extra CW operator; but the usual suspects never showed up. Meanies! 😉
Thanks to the many visitors, and those who always do the logistics but are afraid of microphones, paddles and keyboards. Big fun in little Uvalde!
