NW8S Field Day 2021

NW8S Field Day 2021
NW8S 5A OH

Oh my!  Another field day in the books and if we thought last year was awesome, this one was probably the best field day we’ve had yet.  There’s still some antenna work to be done next year, some improvements we need to work on to reduce interference between bands, but for having 5 transmitters in close proximity, we really have nothing to complain about.

The crew operated 5A again this year and KC8NZJ brought out the “hambulance” for our VHF and GOTA stations.  

Saturday started out kind of slow for us and without the upper bands open, we struggled to keep 5 stations busy on the air.  40 was our bread and butter band during the day, with 80 taking off at sunset (no surprise).  We had about the same amount of Qs on 40 as we did 80, the difference being the 80 contacts were at a much faster rate in about half the time we were operating on 40.  

Sunday morning showed some promise on the upper bands, but just enough to tease us without really ripping wide open.  There was also some sporadic-e on 6m Sunday morning.

20 meters continues to confound us.  This is two years in a row where we’ve not performed as well on 20m as we expected to. Hopefully as some other Ohio field day operations post to 3830scores.com we can see if it was conditions or something we’re doing wrong.

N8ESG Hambulance – GOTA Station

Highlights for the weekend:

  • New guy NA8Q rolled in from Toledo, sat down at a radio with headphones and a paddle, and ripped off 700 CW Qs like it was his freakin’ job.
  • KC8NZJ was only coming out for Saturday, but he and some visitors (K8MWF, KB8VXE, N8OOF, KC8KSU) refused to give up on a sat contact – finally getting an FM contact on a pass around 0120 ET Sunday morning.
  • AB8M ran two special editions of the Burning River Traffic Net to provide an outlet for other area field day clubs to inject traffic into NTS.  He also picked up some additional traffic to relay during the 3rd session of the net.
  • The site was torn down in under 2 hours and with only minutes to spare before the skies opened up in a downpour.
  • Our elected official sat down at our 75m phone station and ripped off 200 Qs, staying until after 0100 ET.
  • Plenty of 807s cold in the fridge.
  • Did I mention our best score ever?  2,931 QSOs and 11,858 points.
NW8S Sections Worked

Equipment:

  • 6 dipoles, most at 65’ AGL, one as an inverted V
    • 80 CW / 75 Phone
    • 40 CW / 40 Phone
    • 20 CW / 20 Phone
  • Trapped vertical for 20/15/10 with a triplexer
  • Band pass filters for all bands
  • 1 x TS-890
  • 2 x 7610
  • 1 x 7600
  • 1 x K3
  • 2 X 7300

Operators:

  • KB8O, AB8M, KM8V, NQ8O, NA8Q, N8EFO, N8MFP, N8YNR, KC8NZJ, KB8VXE

QSO Breakdown:

BandCWPhoneDigital
80391470239
40643334206
2017899110
15121026
1040039
60250
2080
70cm020

One Comment on “NW8S Field Day 2021”

Comments are closed.