Our club class 3F station had it really tough. No Tentecs. Carpet on the
floor, central air conditioning, stairs to the roof, a bit limited roof
space for antennas and no way to toss up a tower without damaging the
flat roof, a steep set of stairs from the street to the operating
positions in that room with carpeted floor but an empty conduit from
that room to the roof. No bugs, workable CW radios and my antique
Western Electric 2A legless key. We achieved great rapport with the Red
Cross, owner of the space, and had decent publicity, at least two news
paper articles, visits by FEMA types. Generator ran flawlessly, GOTA and
VHF made virtually no contacts. When I showed up late Saturday night for
my late evening CW shift the pizzas were cold.
The gaggle of IC746 couldn't ignore stations in the same room on other
bands, especially when the antennas crossed up on the roof but its QSK
was as smooth as my Corsair II.
Inexperienced operators, a custom excessively complex logging program,
poor propagation, and interstation interference limited the total
contacts. But we had fun.
Truly a tough FD!
--
Entire content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer.
Reproduction by permission only.
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