I remember being really excited for my first Field Day
event. I had already gone to a few of the local Amateur Radio club meetings
shortly after receiving my license, KF7OOL, and was all fired up for the event.
Chuck, the club's president invited me to come and help out. They had about 200
members, and many of them were going to be at Field Day this year, just as
always. I was ecstatic!
Finally the big day had arrived. It was Field Day! I was so sleepy that I could
hardly get any rest the night before, but was ready to do the whole 24 hours
just the same. I went and picked up Willy, one of the senior club members whose
car was in the shop and needed a lift. No problem, I had room to spare, and he
knew the way to the site, some 50 miles away. I drove out to the annual Field
Day site with great enthusiasm, so much so that I got two speeding tickets on
the way there. It would have been three, but I didn't want to be late, so I
outran the last state trooper to get there. Not an easy feat in a small Toyota
truck, but I managed... Willy kind of freaked out when I did that, and was
unable to speak once we arrived at the site (thankfully he had a map to the site
in his front shirt pocket or I would have never found the site!)
I got to the parking lot that the club had set up for Field Day, and quickly
pulled behind a nice new yellow Corvette. My emergency brake never has worked
right, but I figured that I could block up the tires of my truck well enough to
where nothing would happen. Looking back upon it, I guess I should have no
parked on the little hill, as my truck did start to roll forward as soon as I
got out of it, but that Corvette managed to stop the sudden forward motion of my
truck, really fast! I was glad, as Willy was still in it. I wouldn't want
anything bad to happen to Willy.
I went over and asked some club members to help me get Willy out of my Toyota.
They were a little concerned with his condition upon seeing him, pale, sweating,
hands shaking and all. This was really too bad, as Willy was one of the clubs
best CW operators. He was unable to compete and had to be taken home. I guess
that Willy wasn't much for long drives.
Ted, Willy's younger brother, must have been in one too many Field Day events,
as he pulled out of the operation after finding out that someone had carelessly
ran into his Corvette. It was some Toyota truck I was told. I guess my truck is
a popular make. I wonder who could have been such a careless driver to this
day... Quite the coincidence in vehicle makes if you ask me. I was dismayed at
such a lack of dedication on Ted's behalf however. After all, a car is a car is
a car, and I was sure that Willy would recover nicely.
Anyway, after a little while I met Bob, one of the 80-meter CW & 40- meter
SSB operators and club treasurer, who welcomed my offer to help, and asked me if
I could get some rope to help him better secure one of the supports for his
dipole for 80-meters, as the wind was kicking up a bit. I said no problem and
proceeded to my truck. Imagine my good fortune, as on the way to my truck I
found some rope! No need to walk all that distance back up to the parking area.
The rope was tied to a nice piece of wood that was stuck in the ground at an
awkward angle, but I managed to get it untied and gave it a good yank.
As I was walking back from my great rope find one of the operators on 15-meter
CW had something horrible happen! His tent collapsed suddenly upon him and his
operating station. He was quite shaken by the event, and it also ended the clubs
15-meter station operation. This was very unfortunate for the club. Later,
someone said that one of the ropes tied to a tent stake got cut lose from the
stake and a gust of wind came along and caused the tent to capsize. Odd, you
would have thought that such a well-prepared Amateur Radio club such as this
would have made sure that the tent was fastened securely.
Later on that evening the club had its annual Field Day barbeque. Great, I was
very hungry at this point. I walked up and offered my assistance in getting the
fire started. Bob said that I could get the campfire going. So I went and put
the wood in the place they had set up for the campfire. The only problem was
that the wood had gotten wet from a rainstorm the night before. I came up with a
quick solution for this however, and went over to the generator and got a
five-gallon gas can. Nothing starts a fire quite like good ol' gasoline! I just
knew that the club members would be pleased with my effort in getting the fire
started once they came over and saw a roaring campfire!
The wood was pretty wet, so I poured on about a gallon of gas or so. Then I
figured, you know, this wood is awfully wet, the logs are pretty thick, and I
really need to get this fire blazing for the barbeque. So I poured the rest of
the can on the wood. I decided to wait a bit before lighting the fire, as I
wanted the gasoline to soak in real good. I walked back to the generator and
placed the empty gas can where I found it.
On my way back to the campfire I suddenly saw a huge ball of fire shoot way up
into the air along with what sounded like an explosion! Oh what bad luck the
club is having this year, I thought. I heard all sorts of yelling and screaming
on my hurried trek to the campfire. As it turns out Bob had tossed a match onto
the wet wood, after putting a little bit of lighter fluid on it to help get it
started. He lost his eyebrows, his callsign cap, and his new ARRL Field Day
shirt in the event. I guess Bob didn't know the dangers of putting too much
lighter fluid on a campfire.
Joe, our clubs vice-president, asked me if I could help out with running Bob's
40-meter SSB station. I eagerly jumped at the chance. In fact, I was so eager
that I tripped over a few large solar panels, breaking them up pretty badly.
Nothing a little glue here and there couldn't fix I thought. However, this
really angered Joe, and he told me that the club would be better off if I went
out and did something called "Snipe Hunting". So he sent me out into
the woods with a nice wooden tent stake from the now ruined 15-meter CW station
to go and kill a Snipe. Now I've been Snipe hunting before, but have never to
this day seen one, much less killed one. And the odd thing about going Snipe
hunting is that when you get back to where you started from all of your hunting
buddies are always gone. So I only went out for a couple of hours to assure I
would be back and ready to operate the night shift. I never did find any Snipes
that night either. Boy, they sure are elusive creatures.
Sometime during the middle of the night the generator quit running. All the
stations shut down as the generator died. It had run out of gas, and Joe got all
worked up once he found that the gas can was empty. I was amazed at how
unprepared the club really was for this years Field Day. Joe, seeing that I had
returned from Snipe hunting asked me to get some more gas for the generator. I
couldn't make out what he was saying at first because I was so far away, but he
was pointing to me, and it sounded like he was saying; "Steven that ool
can't screw this up", or something to that effect. I was impressed that he
remembered the last three of my call letters, not to mention his faith in my
abilities. I think that by this time I really had made an impression on Joe.
Joe must have wanted Steve, the club's secretary to take a lesson from me, as he
said for him to go and watch everything that I did, and to make sure that
nothing got screwed up by some fool. I'm not sure why Joe was worried about some
"fool" messing things up, as this club was supposed to be a top-notch
group of guys, and I didn't think that any "fool" would try to
interfere with us... Anyway, I grabbed the two nearest five- gallon cans and
took them to my Toyota and proceeded out, along with Steve riding shotgun.
The gas station was a good ways away, but I managed to shave off a few minutes
by making a quick detour down one of the older roads in the area. I guess that
Steve wasn't as dedicated to Field Day as I had thought, because when we came to
a sign that said; "bridge out", he protested my suggestion that we
jump the bridge. I knew that I could do it; my trusty rusty Toyota had made this
sort of thing before... Well we made the jump; it was only 30 feet or so across,
and about 150 feet down. No problem! Steve must have been really tired; as he
apparently passed out from what I figured was exhaustion about the time we went
airborne. So I dropped him off at the gas station after filling the cans with
gasoline and headed back to the clubs Field Day site. Just like I figured, Steve
just wasn't that dedicated to Field Day.
Upon my arrival back at the Field Day site Joe seemed a bit irritated, as Steve
wasn't with me. I explained to him that Steve just couldn't handle the stress of
the event and fell asleep. I think that Joe was pretty upset with Steve, as he
kept mumbling and kicking dirt around for a while. At least he was happy to see
that I had brought the two five-gallon gas cans back.
Now we were full into the night shift. Joe, somewhat reluctantly told me that I
could run the 40-meter station. I could hardly wait! I had no problem with solar
panels this time, as they were all broken and piled up next to the trashcan. I
guess that Joe figured they were now useless do to it being nighttime and all.
I hurried into the tent to make my very first Field Day contacts on 40-meter SSB.
Once inside, I quickly fired up the radio, a nice one at that a Yaesu FT-1000D.
I saw that the mike gain wasn't adjusted properly, so I turned it all the way up
and punched the processor button. I started tuning the amplifier, and then
realized that I could get more power out of it if I just kept increasing the
drive power, and tweaking the load and plate controls. I did this for a while
and it was a good thing, as every time that I would un-key, I heard operators
complaining about some idiot who was constantly tuning up on the frequency. Odd,
I never heard him... I guess I was lucky. So I continued to tune up the
amplifier. Then yet another problem arose! The amplifier, which had worked very
well up until this point, had a very sharp decrease in power, and smoke started
coming out of it. I grabbed a cup of coffee to pour into the small fire in the
amplifier, but missed, and it went down into the Yaesu FT- 1000D. Then the Yaesu
made a few arcing noises and quit. I guess they just don't make radios like they
used to.
Well I couldn't get the fire under control, and had to bail out of the tent, and
it went up in flames. It managed to catch the 10-meter
tent on fire too.
Good thing the band was dead and the club wasn't using the tent for the night
shift. However, I knew that this was going to hurt the club's chances at another
good score for this year's Field Day.
We nearly had lost the 6-meter station that Mike, the clubs VHF guru was
running. It seems in my haste to help put the fire out I tripped over a guy
wire, causing me to fall into a table, which broke my fall nicely I might add,
but it did knock over a five gallon jug of ice water, right onto Mike. This was
too bad, as I could have used it to help put out the fire. But at least it did
wake Mike up, albeit rather suddenly from a sound sleep.
Joe, after being woke up suddenly when the tent he was sleeping in caught fire
(the 10-meter setup), was once again, pretty upset to say the least. I tried to
explain how the amplifier malfunctioned and that the Yaesu was just a junky
piece of plastic, now melted anyway, but Joe didn't seem to care too much for
what I had to say. He really needed some psychological treatment I figured, as
he rushed at me, screaming, yelling, and swinging a vertical antenna he had
yanked up out of the ground at me. I guess the several accidents at this year's
Field Day and the stress of operating for so many years had really taken its
toll on Joe.
It took the club a good while to get the fire out, and once it was out, the club
had lost not only their 15-meter station, but now the
40-meter and 10-meter stations as well. This was most disturbing. It was just
getting to be daylight too.
After the fire was put out, I decided to go over and
offer my assistance to Mike, with the 6-meter station he was operating. Well
as soon as Mike saw me coming he started yelling for me to go away and threw a
folding chair at me. I guess that Mike wasn't much of a morning person.
Well even though quite a few of the club members seemed to have lost their zest
for this year's Field Day I sure hadn't, and I went over to the 20-meter
station, ran by Sam. Sam was a ham's ham, a real DX expert. I asked Sam if I
could help him out, and he told me that I could do the logging for him. Great,
as this was finally my chance to put some contacts down for the club. However,
after only about five minutes or so, Sam told me rather bluntly to leave his
operating position, as he was getting very annoyed at me and my yelling
"Yeah, way to go Sam!" after each contact he made. Gee, I was only
trying to cheer him on.
Undaunted, I went over to the breakfast table to catch a bite to eat. I figured
that Sam would need my assistance again after I had eaten. Perhaps then he would
have regained his enthusiasm for this year's Field Day. On my way back from
breakfast I nearly tripped over some coax cable that was carelessly lying on the
ground. With the condition that many of the club members were in at this point I
figured that it would be best for me to move it, before someone had another
accident. So I gave the coax a good yank. At precisely that same moment however,
there must have been a huge gust of wind, because Mike's 6-meter radio suddenly
flew right off of his operating table, smashing into the ground! So much for the
club's VHF station operation... Boy was the club ever having bad luck this year.
Well, at least I did avert any accidents by moving that coax.
I continued on to Sam's 20-meter operating position, he had Joe, who seemed a
bit calmer now, logging for him. I didn't want to further upset Joe or bother
Sam, so I tried to stay quiet. I noticed that their 30-foot tower that they had
erected was swaying a bit in the wind, so I went and got my truck and tied a guy
wire to the end of it and secured their tower to my bumper.
Sam and Joe were doing great at this point and both got ecstatic when a P5 came
on frequency and responded to their call. Then I noticed that someone hadn't
taped up a coax connector for the station they were operating. Wow, I would hate
to have seen them lose a contact or have another malfunction, so I quickly
un-did the connector on the coax cable, to clean it, then fastened it back up
and taped it up.
It really was too bad that Sam couldn't ever get that P5 to come back again... I
don't know what happened, and neither did they. Before Sam and the P5 could
exchange signal reports their HF radio quit receiving suddenly for a minute. We
never could figure out what caused it. It really wasn't a good way to end Field
Day, and just made this year's event the club's worst ever. The club members
claimed that a curse had befallen them this year, and I was beginning to agree
at this point.
I felt bad for the club, and I did have to leave a little early, as I had some
yard work that needed to get done, so I offered to drive
anyone home who needed a lift, but no one took me up on it. Some of them must
really be into physical fitness, as more than one of them said that they would
rather walk home. I left about an hour early, while Sam and Joe were still
trying to get that P5 back and make some more contacts before Field Day was
officially over. So it was a long lonely drive home for me. However, an odd
thing happened to me. I noticed when I got home that I had three 10-foot
sections of tower tied behind my truck! Wow, this was very fortunate for me, as
I needed a tower. Maybe one of the club members thoroughly appreciated my
efforts helping out at Field Day this year, and decided to give me the tower
sections as a surprise.
Oh well, as they say, there's always next year! And boy, I can hardly wait to
help out with the club next year at Field Day! I'm already looking forward to
it. I plan to be much more helpful too.