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2008 TVDXA Field Day Report and Photo Gallery
Here it is, the first week after FD, and I’m already writing the A.A.R. (After Action Report). What do I have to say even before the dust settles on another eventful TVDXA FD that hasn’t been said before? Well, here it goes with the highlights:
We owe David & Joan Broome a THANK YOU for providing the club a wonderful FD location and enough food to feed a small country. Joan doted over everyone, made sure we had more of everything and it looked wonderful. David’s two BBQ’ed briskets were a Knockout. They both made the club members “feel at home”, stayed up until 1:00AM talking and stoking the fire, and made friends with everyone that came to operate or watch.
FD was just like any other, we had a reasonably good club turn out but we did miss some of our regulars. We were able to have both stations up and operational by noon, rather than sometime after the start time of FD as in the past. This year we were relaxed and ready for the opening gun.
Gary got the FD-ARRL message via RTTY and Howard got the FD Public Service message on US-101. Both got the club extra points.
The HF wire
antennas, matching OCF Dipoles, worked well, even though we didn’t work a ton
of west coast or Hawaii. The best part was installing them:
It took next to no muscle to install them
You were not bone tired after installation
It didn’t take 10 people to muscle them into place
They were a lot safer and easier to install
Lots of good comments on how well they worked
Greg setup our 6-meter station using a small beam @ 10FT and wouldn’t you know it, we made ~50 contacts.
Our overall FD
operating QSO totals were nearly the same as in past years with:
CW 644 (Well done CW ops)
SSB 549
6-M 51
TOTAL 1244 Q’s TOTAL PRELIMINARY FD SCORE 4046 Pts
As you can see the CW guys beat the SSB guys, like a drum.
Talk about a thunderstorm – we had a frog–strangler for about 30-45 minutes before things got back to just wet-normal and then humid-normal. In the end, we lost about an hours (+) operating time with some additional drying of people & equipment. Not something we could control.
We did have an unusual occurrence with a visit from Tom Morgan – it has been years since this happened!
As with any endeavor, there are some low points that may need review in the future.
We had a fair but lower than normal turnout of club members for FD setup, operating and especially the BBQ dinner. Are members losing interest in FD? If so, what can be done to improve participation?
We didn’t use
towers with beam antennas – deal with it.
Comparisons to past years w/beams (~1242 QSO’s 2008):
2007 1640 w/GOTA
2006 1290 w/o GOTA
2005 1730 w/GOTA
2004 1424
2003 1364
2002 1477
Not much difference overall for the extra effort needed to erect beams &
towers.
Until we can get an increased number of visitors or younger hams, the GOTA station may need to be on hold, along with the extra hundreds of points for visitors, info table, and special interest stuff. This will affect our overall point performance and placement in FD scoring.
On the other side, many clubs don’t get as many QSO’s as we get but they work harder at getting all these “near free” points, which can equal up to hundreds of QSO’s and a much better score for FD.
GOTA 100 Pts plus QSO’s
Info table 100 Pts
Public loc 100 Pts
Messages 200 Pts (up to)
Education 100 Pts
Visitors 200 Pts (up to)
Youth 20 Pts each
Finally, after heading up FD for the past 6+ years, I feel its way past time for someone else to take over the reins. This will allow new and different ideas and methods to be introduced and tried to see how well they work. It has been a good run and a pleasure working with everyone; I have enjoyed the challenges and changes, and have learned a lot about FD. I hope you have enjoyed FD as much as I have and I will continue to be available to provide the info from the past successful years of FD. Thanks for the confidence in letting me lead such a brilliant and talented group of operators, both CW & SSB: It’s been a blast!
73 Howard KE4MBP
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