Our Field Day efforts went well.
Last year was the first year W4BFB - the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society
had a 'digital' tent. In park that we use for FD, I set up my home
contesting station and attached it to a GAP vertical antenna. I demoed and
explained 'digital mode' to lots of our club members who tried their hand
at RTTY and PSK for the first time.
This year, I got named FD Chairman, so I had to plan and run the show. That
left me very little time to operate my RTTY/PSK FD station this year. But
because of last year's effort, my 'operator sign-up sheet' was full with
members who watched or tried the digital modes and wanted to do it again or
try it for the first time.
We made a couple of hundred digital QSOs, 60/40 split RTTY vs PSK. The PSK
QSOs take so much longer than contest RTTY QSOs, and I think that a lot of
ops were 'new' and not 'contesters'. That's fine with me, because FD
weekend is, in my mind, for demonstrating/promoting/showcasing/teaching
amateur radio to the local public and to other hams.
We even got some local TV coverage.
If you have broadband: Click here, it is only good for 30 days:
http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/headlines/Default.asp?SecID=41&ArID=96276&;
I set our exchange to be 599 serialNumber serialNumber FD 3A NC 3A NC so we
could make 'good' QSOs with FD stations and any UKDX stations that called
us. I am going through the logs and I am going to send in a 'check log' for
the UKDX folks who worked us.
Now to get everything set back up for this weekend's contest......
73,
Ben Antanaitis
WB2RHM
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