I managed to give myself a dose of mild heatstroke while we were setting up on Saturday....apparently I still haven't learned, at my age, to wear a hat and drink plenty of water on hot sunny days. That set me up for an even worse weekend than I was going to have.
I manned the 40m SSB station, and my antenna for the weekend was a 29' (9m) EFRW vertical, with a 9:1 Balun and four 17' radials. This worked well, and tuned 6m through 40m with no issues. Now it will tune on 80m, but I'm not too sure it would be too effective there. The only difference between the way I use this antenna, and the way Salty Walt uses his, is the fact he only uses one 17' radial and I use four.
The propagation on Saturday: SFI=118, SN=103, A Index=21, and the K Index=1
The propagation Sunday: SFI=122, SN=104, A Index=9, and the K Index=2.
On top of this the Solar Wind was up to over 550 kps all weekend, and that was causing lots of deep, and unwanted, QSB for everyone.
We operated QRP, with five stations working on batteries, and we had eight of our club members out for the event, and many thanks to Jim VE3ULC for the use of his property.
I managed to put a rather pitiful total of 67 contacts in the log, all weekend, and most of them I had to really work to get.
Did I enjoy myself? No, not really. The company and food was great, but I think doing POTA has spoiled me for portable operating in a relaxed environment. Too many participants of this year's Field Day were contesting, instead of treating it as an emergency operating event that it is supposed to be, according to the ARRL. And of course, with POTA, everyday is Field Day so it is no longer special. Will I continue to participate in Field Day? Probably, but not in the way I have done in the past.
Here's a few pictures from the weekend:
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| Eric, VE3DN, our CW guy! |
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| VE3FI's station |
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| Don, VE3MNE's home for the weekend |
