I participated in Field day with the Panama City ARC as W4RYZ 2F NFL at the Bay County EOC in Southport, FL. I setup an operating position outside with a 40 meter Off Center Fed (OCF) dipole up 20 feet. The feed point was supported by the military mast sections off a hitch adapter on the truck and the ends were supported by crappie poles. The antenna will tune 40 20 15 and 10 with my IC 703 internal tuner. I had a 10 foot coax section and a choke balun to make it a New Carolina Windom but the coax section was intermittent. I discovered the problem the day prior to FD and went without it. I also had a new EZ Up canopy with screen sides. We never zipped the screen because not one mosquito showed up. The bands from the tropical storm Debby threatened on Saturday but they missed us. It was raining just South of us. The outside conditions were actually pleasant after dark. We were next to some pools of water and had a symphony of croaking frogs.
Outside we started out on 10 meters and heard some stations but could not be heard. We switched to 15 and picked up a few and on to 40 and 20 later where the bulk of the contacts were made. I had the pleasure of sitting in with some proficient CW ops Jim ND9M and Bob WB8PAF. I have a long way to go to be proficient. We traded out my Icom 703 for Bob's Yaesu 100 watt rig and a paddle. Those two racked up contacts all through the night. Sunday AM while I was napping, the outside operating position was disassembled due to some bands of rain coming in. It rained pretty good that morning through pack-up of the gear. Since I was out of business for outside ops I tried the AlexLoop setup just outside the door of the EOC. I made a NM and a PA contact on 20 meters. I was very pleased with that.
The inside operating position in the EOC used 80 meter OCF dipole outside supported by military masts setup as tripods. Marv KK4DKT made a good number of PSK-31 contacts inside. Marv, our FD chairman, coordinated the bonus activity and we got credit for 12 bonuses. ND4M made a satellite contact. I charged a battery with my solar panel and we used it to make 5 natural power contacts. The preliminary QSO count is 476. The whole team did a great job and we did have about a dozen visitors. We hope they get on the air.
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| Bob WB8PAF in front of EZ-Up |
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| Rigs for outside ops |
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| Solar Setup |
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| Military mast tripods for 80 meter OCF |
