Field Day 2017: Final Plans

I am a bit obsessive about Field Day but Why Not! In my teen ham years, I remember the local club dropped off a generator and left Field Day to four of us teenage hams. We knew how to string up some dipoles and did Field Day on our own. That does not seem to happen anymore.

This year I will be doing Field Day at Falling Waters State Park near Chipley, Florida. I reserved the call N4Y for the event. I can't invite the general public to the camping area. However, we welcome all the campers.

Prior to Field Day on Friday, I will operate as N4KGL and the contacts will count for KFF-1864 Parks On The Air. Friday night is informally known as QRP Night We will look for other groups participating on CW QRP frequencies.

Our Field Day starts at 1800 UTC or 1 PM CDT Saturday. It is 24 hours but due to checkout time being 1 PM Sunday I will tear down at 11 AM.

The rig will be my Icom 7300 and a 30 by 20 ft vertical loop. The bottom wire is 10 feet above the ground. It is fed at the bottom center with an AH-4 tuner. I have 100 AH of battery power and a solar panel. I also will have a rig on 2 meters and a 4 element yagi.

We will be one transmitter (Class B) One or two-person portable: Rick NZ2I will be the second op. The Section is Northern Florida NFL So our exchange is 1B NFL on CW and One Bravo North Florida on phone

Phone contacts count one point each.
CW contacts count two points each.
Digital contacts count two points each


The power multiplier will be 2 X for less than 150 watts. I am bailing out on QRP this time.

We should qualify for at least for these bonuses:

• 100 points Publicity. I submitted a story to the Washington CountyNews
• 100 points for being on on emergency power. I have us covered with 100 AH of batteries plus a solar power assist.
• 100 points for being in a public place
• 100 points for a public information table.
• 100 Points for Section Manager Message and up to 100 points for message handling. I am working with Phil N4STC to relay messages via 2-meter simplex. He will be Field Day Mobile.
• 100 bonus points for Field Day groups making a minimum of five QSOs without using power from commercial mains or petroleum-driven generator. I can use the supercapacitor setup for this.We can charge it up with a human power generator or solar.
• 100 points for social media. I posted to the Google+ Field Day Community.
• 50 points for submitting via the web.

There are a few more possible bonuses like youth operators, and so forth. See http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Field-Day/2017/2017%20Rules.pdf

The Panama City ARC will be at the Bay County EOC as usual operating with a the W4B callsign. Phil N4STC of Panama City will be Field Day mobile. There will also be KE4FD operating in Bay County contact K4LIX Jim for info.

Good Luck on FD,

Greg N4KGL