On Wednesday, December 8, the membership elected the following officers:
Ed, AB8OJ, is returning to the board, while James, KC8BGJ, is joining the board for the first time.
Congratulations to all!
Tucked away in a small cabin (right) at the Brighton Recreation Area, our Winter Field Day team battled poor band conditions, but still managed more QSOs than last year, reports Thom, W8TAM.
Despite an urgent call for operators early Sunday morning, Thom, Dinesh AB3DC, and John WA8TON bested our 2019 by 2 contacts. Thom said, “253 QSOs after dupe checking. 2 more than last year. I think that’s a good result. The solar conditions this year were worse than last year. Good effort by all!”
While the weather outside was frightful (see below), inside it was delightfully warm. As you can see, Thom is in short sleeves. I’m impressed that they even had a boom mike.
Thom W8TAM, Dinesh AB3DC, and John WA8TON setting up the Winter Field Day antenna.
A ham friend of Rick, K8BMA passed recently, and his family has asked us to assist them in selling his equipment. In return, they have graciously agreed to donate 1/3 of the proceeds to our scholarship fund. Below are photos of the equipment. Not pictured are a three-element Steppir yagi (which needs some work) and a Flex 5000 transceiver (it wasn’t in the main shack, and I forgot to take a picture of it).
I have set up a Google Docs spreadsheet listing the equipment and some asking prices. I’ve tried to be realistic about the prices, but please consider them as starting points, not end points. Also keep in mind that a third of what you pay will be going to our scholarship fund. Email me separately for the link to the spreadsheet.
If you have any questions, or would like to see the equipment, please get in touch with me, and I’ll try to answer questions and arrange for you to see the gear.
73, Dan KB6NU
We ran four HF stations this year, including two CW and two SSB stations. Also shown in this photo are the GOTA station, the public information table, and the food tent. Photo: Larry Works, KD8MDM.
Dave, N8SBE, our Field Day 2019 head honcho reports:
The U-M Amateur Radio Club and ARROW joined again for Field Day 2019, operating class 4A (four transmitters, no commercial power) and one GOTA (Get On The Air) station. We operated again from the park just north of the Ann Arbor Airport.
The radios included three Elecraft K3s, a Yaesu FTdx5000mp for one SSB station, and the UofM club’s Kenwood TS-590 for the GOTA station. We used contest filters on all the radios, which all did well in the intense multi-multi setup with minimal co-interference.
Our antennas were held up with 40-ft. masts built up from 10, 4-ft. sections of those surplus fiberglass poles used for camouflage netting in the Gulf wars. These are handy and lightweight, but require 8 people to put up a mast — four on the guy ropes, one on a ladder to raise and hold up the mast while the sixth guy stuffs mast sections up from under, and the last two to stand about 90 degrees apart and determine when the whole thing looks fairly vertical before tying down the guys. We use two sets of four guys, one set at the top of the mast, and the other half-way down. We had two CW dipoles, one a multi-band 80, 20, 15, and 10m (note the absence of 40m), the other a single-band 40m, placed end-to-end to minimize pickup. Two more antennas for the SSB stations, one an Alpha-Delta CC multi-band, the other a 40m “super-loop”, again placed end-to-end. It takes six masts total to put up the four dipoles, since we separate the SSB and CW dipoles on either side of the parking area where all the shelters are set up.
When we ‘pulled the plug’ on Sunday at 2pm ET, we had more than 2000 contacts. We worked to obtain as many bonus points as possible, but did leave some on the table, including the visit from an elected official, visit from a served agency, and the satellite contact. We usually manage everything except the satellite contact, although some years in the past, we snagged that one, too.
While totalling up all the points will take some time, I think we did pretty well again this year. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this a fun event.
Here are some photos from Arun, W8ARU:
Don, AC8TO, coaching someone at the GOTA station.
Dinesh, AB3DC, and Arun, W8ARU, enjoying the fine weather.
Stuart, W8SRC, cranking out some Qs, with Don, AC8TO looking on. This was Stuart’s 10th Field Day!
Here are some more photos from Larry, KD8MZM:
WS8U’s generator provided most of the power for this year’s FD.
We tried setting up a Beverage antenna, but results were mixed.
Charles, W8HAX, operates one of the SSB stations.
Dan, KB6NU, operates one of the CW stations.
By Garry, W8GMD
Jerry Anderson, WB8FXY, and I manned a table at the Ann Arbor Creativity & Making Expo (formerly known as the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire) in the downtown library on Sunday May 20th while everyone else was basking in the warm sunshine in Xenia, OH 😉 . We had a fair number of visitors with most of the younger children having fun with the Morse Code keys. There was some interest in the remote demonstration of FT-8 on 40 meters until the band washout around 3:00 pm. I did make a few contacts at the beginning of the day but nothing later in the afternoon. To make these contacts, I was remotely controlling my ICOM 7300. Everything else went well and we also talked to a couple of inactive hams and others concerning what Amateurs do, and have done in times of need.
I was told that we would be outside but as is seen in the pictures we were not. I’m thinking they think of the area we were in as “outside” the general library area. It was good that we were inside since it did rain a bit at the end of the day. Jerry and I were also going to demonstrate 2-way communication on 2 meters but were not able to make it to any of the local repeaters in the location we were in.
We were also helped by the AACME committee by making us one of the stops the kids had to go by to get their cards stamped. This did generate interest in some that I think would not have stopped by if it wasn’t for that. They got some sort of prize or something for having all the things stamped. So all in all, I’d say everything went well and Radio Amateurs were well represented at the Expo.
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