07/27/2006 | VE2MPQ VE2MPQ 1B Qc

Living 200 km apart, Michel (VE2MPQ) and I (Louis VE2EZD) are not seeing each other very often. Field Day 2006 was to be an excellent occasion to meet and have fun together.

Friday morning I packed the small Tercel with all the radio gear I could and headed toward Contrecoeur near Montreal wich is 200 km away.

Our first Field Day together was to be a test and try exercise.
Michel climbed up two big maple trees to install the pulleys to support the antenna. We operated on 40m only using an experimental end-fed half wave antenna wich gave us excellent results. The best description that fit this antenna is a wire HF J-Pole. Our shack was a 10'x10' Gazebo and the power came from a pair of heavy duty car batteries.

All the contacts we made were on CW and PHONE. The little TS-570DG and its very ergonomic layout worked perfectly.

During the night, trying unsuccessfully to work the ISS, we heard VE2CBS (Sorel-Tracy ARC)on the uplink frequency. As we were not very far apart we decided to pay them a little visit the following morning. They were very friendly and it's an understatement to say that we were very impressed by their 30 element log-periodic wire antenna.

The weather was perfect here in Quebec for the entire Field Day weekend and as expected we had a lot of fun.

We now know much better how to work together in a contest condition.
The pulleys are still in those big maple trees and awaits there for the next Field Day.

73s from Michel and Louis -- VE2EZD