ARRL Field Day is less than a week away, and everything is coming together…
Publicity
We’ve been working to let the public know about our participation in Field Day:
- Facebook: St Louis QRP Society page
- St. Louis County Community News (see the issue to be published later this week)
- St. Louis Today
- St. Louis Today Calendar
- West Newsmagazine (press release submitted)
Special thanks to Janelle Haible, N0MTI, who’s the Public Information Officer for the St. Louis Metro ARES organization. Janelle got in touch with local news organizations, well in advance, to explain why news and feature desks would be getting multiple submissions from area ham clubs. This was a great idea — thanks Janelle!
Emergency Power
We will be operating 100% emergency power again this year. That means batteries alone will power all our operating gear (radios, tuners, keyers, etc.). We will also use solar power to make many of our contacts, so we will qualify for the Alternate Power bonus.
Weather
The Old Farmers Almanac says “Jun 17-24: Scattered t-storms, turning hot.” No surprise there! If you’re more interested in the modern approach, AccuWeather says “Saturday: Cloudy with thunderstorms possible–high 84 (RealFeel 85); Sunday: Mostly sunny–high 90 (RealFeel 91)”
Antennas
We’ll have a mix of antennas we’ve used before, along with some newcomers:
- 10M – Rotatable dipole
- 15M – Bisquare
- 20M – Mosley TA-33 Jr
- 40M – Half-square
- 80M – the venerable dipole
- 10-40 – Magnetic loop
Radios
This is always somewhat fluid, with changes right up until the start. But so far I think we will see these radios:
Operating Modes
We will be operating CW (Morse code) as we always do… but not exclusively. This year as in years past we will also be using SSB (voice). This year we will be spreading out our operations a bit — in the past we’ve had interference problems when two stations on the same band got in each other’s receivers. By separating our stations (and antennas) we hope to avoid that this year. Our location in O’Connor Park has plenty of space, and the official Field Day Rules allow for stations to be as much as 1,000 feet apart. We’ll take advantage of that this year!
Special Event – Landline Telegraphy
Speaking of operating modes… we’re looking forward to having Derek Cohn, WB0TUA, join us. He’s a landline telegraphy enthusiast, and will be bringing his setup to the park so he won’t miss the regular telegraphy “net”, which will take place from 1:00-2:00pm Saturday.