Field Day 2024

Location: Gifford Pinchot National Forest
Participants: KC7BEY, W7JMP
Pack List
Plan
Log sheets

Who can deny the atmosphere of a Field Day well-played? The adventure, the sound of the CW signals echoing through the forest night. The camaraderie rooted in the teamwork to set up in a difficult location and make the contacts. Taking on the challenge of performing even better this year and getting back home in time to wake up for work Monday morning. The self-imposed discipline. Somehow, all these threads weave together into the tapestry that is Field Day. Exhilirations, fears, patience, and even the smells. This is one of those occasions where one might derive great satisfaction from an utterly exhausting weekend.

This year only KC7BEY and myself were available to hold a Field Day. After reviewing our options we decided to enter the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and explore for a great spot that met Garrett's criteria. We decided to arrive earlier in the day than years before to give ourselves time to get a site off of Forest Road 71, or potentially going to forest roads 21, 25, or possibly 75, all around Randle, WA. Off of road 71, we could have gone to Lake Newaukum, Rooster Rock, NF 71 lookout, or some where near Bremer mountain. We would drive along and figure what might work. We did a lot of studying over topographic maps and the Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Maps.

Forest road 71 proved drivable in our little cars and after two hours of exploring, we found a location near Bremer Mountain. The site met the Ensign Criteria, with a clear view to the southeast, sufficiently high elevation at 3300ft, and trees standing over 100ft tall with the corrent orientation for a doublet to send its energy to the southeast over the CONUS.

Having arrived by 3PM, we were early enough to start working on antennas. And so for the first year we had the antenna up over 100ft on Friday Night! Garret once again showed off his impressive drone skills and mastery of the homebrew doublet, including onsite Western Union splicing of the open wire line with a propane torch. With the doublet up we were able to make a few CW and phone contacts on the Ten Tec Triton II, both QRP and QRO.

On Saturday morning we put the finishing touches on the station, cooked a hearty breakfeast over the campfire, and were actually ready by 11AM. I also explored the branch forest road we stayed by.

Hitting the ground running, we kept up a good rate, about 2 contacts per minute at the peak according to the paper logs. Unlike previous years we resolved to keep antenna experimentation to minimum and tree to beat last year's QSO count with only two instead of three operators.

I had put a random-length vertical which proved effective on 15m, and so our one antenna experiment was to build a 5/8-wave vertical wire for 15m. Indeed, based on the Reverse Beacon Network reports of A/B testing the antenna was roughly 3dB improved over the random wire. At one point, Japan called us back! We held a 40m phone frequency for a long time, and around 10:45 to midnight we ran a frequency on 75m phone. What a party!

We took a break for dinnner during a lull and cooked a king's feast cooked over a big camp fire, with meat and potatoes cooked in a foil pouch and the dutch oven. I baked a peach cobbler in the dutch oven. That fire had burned all day since we'd stocked up the wood before field day began and kept the bugs away.

After dinner we hopped back on and kept up the QSO rate. We decided to retire around midjnight after our run on 75m phone, and noticed that it was beginning to mist and drizzle. I left a tarp over the radio table and Garrett covered his tent with a rain fly. I had already incompletely covered my tent with its rain fly, though later I wished I had covered it properly! The rain did not let up and so around 2AM Ileft the tent and everything was appropriately covered.

As the night progressed I hoped the rain would let up, but it didn't and so I finally awakend at 5AM with the hope of starting a warm campfire and betting back on the air. I managed to pack up the stuff in the tent and put them in the car for dry keeping, but the campfire didn't light even with my meager propane torch blows. Nothing like yesterday, when we effortlessly kept the fire going for the hwole day.

We pushed through the chilly, damp morning under an umbrella and managed to meet our goal of exceeding last year's count by about 9AM. What a thrill! Because of the ongoing rain, we packed up and decided to eat a meal once we'd exited the forest.

Leaving the forest was a much more frightening experience than arriving. Garrett's front passenger tire blew out on a big hunk of gravel, almost certainly because it was a very worn tire. He couldn't remember how old those bald tires were. You could see the steel belts! I have to laught about that in retrospect because I doubt we would have drove up there with those worn out tires. Thankfully, he had a good spare tire and had it changed in no time. He literally wasted no time throwing the gear out of the truck to get the jack and spare. It couldn't have been more than 5 minutes. (Anyone remember The Old Man from A Christmas Story? "Time me!")

We proceed slowly on the rest of the descent, but trouble wasn't over. Turns out the prolonged braking on a steep grade, I guess around 10%, overheated my station wagon's brakes and I experienced I fading for the first time, as the ABS kicked in. Luckily I had mentally rehearsed brake failure before and pulled my emergency brake to pull over and cool the drums and rotors for a few minutes. I was mortally frightened for a moment! Thankfully they worked the rest of the trip after cooling down, and now I will be overhauling them since I believe the brake fluid boiled.

All the previous night I had pondered why all the forecasts didn't mention rain, and instead only showed clouds. Well, at 3300 ft, it turns out we were in the clouds!

The rest of the journey home proved much easier after we left the forest and had our breakfast around 2PM. Field Day had been a success! I will not forget this year.

Created 23 June 2024.
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