Field Day 2025
Was able to setup a station just for this year's Field Day event consisting of a Chameleon Antenna outside feeding into a QRP HF station inside the residence. Note this is totally separate from the everyday ham station which uses an indoor magnetic loop antenna and (the same) IC-705 QRP transceiver in another area of the house.
Initial plan was to use the CHA MPAS-Lite 17' ground mounted vertical antenna for which setup photos are shared below. (This evolved into a tactical delta loop configuration once the vertical was setup and very high QRN / noise levels found for the majority of the bands checked.)
The checklist prepared for this year's event follows:
Here is the Chameleon Antenna MPAS-Lite antenna components intended for this year's antenna. Two spikes are shown. The top spike is a grounding spike, while the slightely smaller spike allows the antenna base and counterpoise wires to be insulated from ground. Due to the risk of severe weather rolling through, the decision was made to use the larger grounding spike to provide protection against static build up on the antenna system.
With that decision made, the components were organized and carried to the antenna location in the rear of the house.
Overview of the antenna mounting location in the rear of the residence. Would need to be extra careful not to loose anything amongst the sea of weeds out there...
The antenna componets were laid out on the patio supporting an organized setup.
The MPAS-Lite vertical antenna uses a mounting spike, white hybrid transformer (1:5), four 25' red wire counterpoises, 50' of RG-58C coax, and a 17' telescoping whip antenna (SS-17).
The base spike is mounted (planted), the hybrid and telescoping whip attached, and the counterpoise wires are ready to be extended in the photo below.
A Comet CTC-50M "flat coax" adapter was used to route the antenna lead into the residence through a patio sliding door. A plastic container was used for temporary weather protection of the outside coax connection. Yellow tent stakes marked the coax path out to the antenna.
A quick check of the antenna's VSWR showed the expected non-resonance over multiple bands. With an automatic antenna tuner used at the station, this VSWR curve is very acceptable for this temporary (24 hours) station.
Seting up the station and connecting the antenna to the radio showed high noise levels across most of the bands.
Station setup: ICOM IC-705 (5 W) , Bencher paddles, LDG IT-100 antenna tuner with custom 705 interface cable, iPad running SDR-Control app, Headphones, and (at far left on the table) large EcoFlow Delta2 battery pack that had been charged earlier in the week via solar/natural power. The +12VDC output from the battery system was used to power the radio and tuner, while the iPad was charged as needed from the front USB ports on the battery.
Given the high QRN levels, made the decision to switch to the Tactical Delta Loop configuration (adding the second SS-17 whip, hub, and top-wire to the MPAS-Lite vertical components). Also removed the counterpoise wires from the setup (as they actually made the noise levels higher than not using them with the delta loop). The power lines right there near the antenna certainly didn't help the noise levels!! (Safety Note: The power lines look closer than they actually were. There was zero chance of any of these antenna components getting near-to or actually touching any power line elements.)
Here's a close-up view of the TDL antenna base, showing the spike, TDL Hub, CHA-Hybrid 1:5 coax feed, and the two SS-17 whip bases. The coax is mostly hidden in the weeds/grass and is following the yellow tent stake markers on its way to the patio door.
Will add field day operating notes and score information here in the future...
Station operations: QRP (5 W), 100% Natural Power, One Radio, One operator, CW contacts only.
It did not take long to take down the station after the event. The antenna components used for this year's event are below. TDL Delta Loop (coax, two whips, hybrid, hub, spike, and top wire). Yellow tent stakes were used to mark the coax path in the weeds/grass. A length of red paracord was used to tie off the loop antenna in the fixed east to west direction (so it would not rotate in the breeze).
The Comet CTC-50M did a great job in getting the coax into the residence through the closed patio door.
It now has a memory shape that showed how it bent around the door frame. Will not straighten this out (and instead just use it again next year).
After the event, the station was disassembled and the components made ready for storage until next year's field day (and/or carried back to the humble QRP indoor magnetic loop station in another area of the house). The +12VDC plug to power pole cable and power pole splitter is just to the right of the EcoFlow battery.
That's it for this year's ARRL Field Day. Hope you had a chance to get on the air and make some FD contacts! 73 from EN52. dit dit