07/05/2004 | K4TDP The 550 DX Club setup for Field Day for a third time this year using our club call, K4TDP. In the spirit of the contest we again setup in the field of AB4DN. Our participants this year were KU4J, K4GU, K4RVH, KD4BJW, AB4DN, KE4YNY, and our newest ham KC0QOP.

Brent (KE4YNY) was a first timer this year and was very energetic and is looking forward to upgrading from No Code Technician before next year.

Jesse (KC0QOP) has been working with us for the past 2 Field Days, but this year he wanted to operate on his own. He passed his Technician test in August of 2003 and his General and CW tests in May of this year. Jesse had made a few contacts during the week leading up to Field Day, but really got his feet wet running the GOTA station. Jesse made 150 contacts during the weekend (6m and GOTA). We are all very proud of his accomplishments and look forward to him helping us out again next year.

This year our theme was to be simple. We were looking to keep our station setup as easy as possible. We did a fairly good job putting up a W5GI Mystery Antenna and a G5RV on two simple masts. The W5GI went up on a 33 foot Fiberglass pole from MFJ and the G5RV on a wooden mast built from 2X4s. The motto was One Man Setup. While the W5GI succeeded the wood mast did require two people, so we have room to improve for next year.

Over all our performance this year was better than our two previous years. We made more contacts (1388), setup quicker and operated more efficiently. Next year we are going to continue our efforts, but may add some directional antennas to help with the crowded bands. KD4BJW -- KD4BJW