07/26/2005 | N0LP Well, another field day here and gone. We operated out of the auxilary Franktown Colorado fire station located six miles east of town. This was our second year operating from this location. We had seven participants, W0CBH, N0NDM, KA0ULN, N0LP, NQ0R, N0AUS, and N0ANN. KA0ZFI, and KCOSOW provided backup support. KA0ZFI's grandson made some contacts and learn the difference between "hunt and pounce" and "trying to hold a frequency". We began setup on Friday afternoon, completing it just before the event started Saturday morning. We had the usual troubles, malfunctioning antennas and bad coax. The inevidable thunderstorm hit us Friday evening. We re-learned how to erect stuborn vertical antennas and of course the rotating dipole had to be readjusted and then replaced. Strange how it works well at home, but not on site. Saturday evening a passing pizza store owner stopped and offered to sell us pizza, but we declined. We then spent some time telling him what we were doing and why we were there. Several visiting hams from two ARES groups came and went. This year we had a second station set up for visiting hams to operate for however long they wanted with their own call signs. We had three hams last year and one (AC7FY) this year. The bands were not that good this year, we made 300 1A contacts on 40, 20, and 15 meters. I had left the inverted vee dipole at home, so when the verticals wouldn't tune on 80 meters we were unable to work anyone.
That will not happen next year, the inverted vee is back on the list of needed equipment. It is always fun to make contact with old field day groups that you have participated with in past events, W6NWG, W0NT, were several of my old clubs that I made contact with this year. I can recognize voices of operators that I have worked side by side with thru the thick of bugs, lightning, and other "field day" happenings. Alas, Gene (WB9COY) never answered me this year, and I spent 15 minutes trying to get thru the pile up to say hi. Oh well, next year. The thing I like most about field day is the fancy phonetics that we all come up with when we are really, really tired on Saturday night, and a wondering dog has drug off your last sandwich, and you have spilled your last mug of coffee chasing him away. Several this year were "pink purple elephants", "ladies red undies", and "never works good" come to mind. I have laughed my head off hearing at others I have heard but alas, my lose of memory keeps me from remember more. On 9:00 am Sunday morning, the fire department remembered an exercise they had scheduled for 11:00 am so we had to start tearing down the station early. During the process we explained what we were doing and how this worked, and answered a lot of questions from them. Of course the station was the last thing we dismantled and we only lost 15 minutes of the operating time allowed for the contest. What a fun time, and we are planning next year's event already. I want to thank Scott (N3FJP) for his last minute help in getting his field day program working on my balky laptop. Benjie W0CBH -- W0CBH