07/03/2006 | W4BFB W4BFB - FIELD DAY 2006 - Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society - Charlotte, NC

It was a typical Field Day weekend in North Carolina..... pop-up showers and thunderstorms predicted and occurring before, during, and after the event. However, the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society (MARS) pressed on for it's 56th Field Day and had lots of fun doing it, even though our effort had to be shortened by two hours.

MARS personnel were all ready to set up portable towers on Friday afternoon at 3PM at the Mint Hill Park in Mint Hill, NC. Mint Hill is just outside of Charlotte, NC. But, a rainless lightning storm and a tire blow-out on our communications trailer delayed things for over an hour. When the weather cleared and the repaired trailer arrived, we set about putting up one of our towers. A second tower was assembled but not erected because of another oncoming thunderstorm.

Setup was completed on Saturday morning, with the second tower going up, stations assembled and computer logbooks tied into a temporary WiFi network. We had three stations: a phone, a cw/phone, and a digital mode station. The phone and cw/phone stations used beam and dipole antennas attached to their towers. The digital station, using either RTTY or PSK modes, used a GAP vertical antenna. AC power was provided by the club mobile generator trailer and a portable generator.

One of the park picnic shelters was converted into an Information Center with club displays, ARRL handouts, and banners. Back issues of QST were offered to anyone who was interested. For the kids, young and old, we also featured Morse code practice keys, constructed from clothes-pins, buzzers, and batteries.

With set-up finally complete, a great BBQ lunch with delicious homemade cakes was served by Jodie, KI4CXO, and Anne, MRS-WB2RHM.

Promptly at 2PM, W4BFB - 'Whiskey Four Big Fat Boy' (a set of phonetics that goes all the way back to the founding of the society) was put on the air in 3A mode.

During the afternoon, the Red Cross, one of our 'Served Agencies', stopped by to inspect and participate in the activities. Later that day, our ARES DEC, Milton KC4YOT, also visited our operation.

Operations continued all through the night. When morning came, the weather service was predicting the strong possibility of torrential rains with lightning, beginning in the early afternoon. This prompted our safety officer to curtail the event at noon, instead of continuing operations to 2PM.

At noon, after 22 hours of operation, our stations began shutting down..... just as the TV14 remote truck arrived. Kate Barker, TV14 field reporter wanted to do a 'shoot' of our Field Day effort. TV14 is the local Charlotte 24/7 news channel. Our shut down procedures ceased abruptly while 'Kate' interviewed the Field Day Chairman and then taped each of our stations in operation. She also taped the lowering of one of the towers to include in her news report.

See: http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/top_stories/?ArID=122529 to see the news broadcast that ran twice an hour for four days (click on view the video).

After Kate completed her interview and taping of each station, the take-down efforts re-began in earnest. At 2:15PM, just as everything was packed up and while the final trailer was being 'hitched', we all had to run for cover in our cars because the start of a 2 inch per hour downpour hit the now empty 2006 W4BFB Field Day Site.

Our Field Day goal was to have fun as well as have visitors and members see traditional and new ways of using amateur radio.

Contacts were made on all modes and great fun was had by all. Our club, the ARRL, and Amateur Radio received news coverage in a full page article in the local Mint Hill Times (that has an additional follow-up article with pictures already scheduled to follow) plus a 'live' TV news report on TV14.

Hopefully, our efforts may inspire folks young and old to become amateurs or to pursue upgrading their licenses. We feel we met our 2006 goal.

Now, on to prepare for 2007!

73,

Ben Antanaitis - WB2RHM@W4BFB.org

Paul Ponak - AD4IE@W4BFB.org

Jodie Rowland - KI4CXO@W4BFB.org

2006 Field Day Committee -- WB2RHM