| WARC |
| WESTCUMB AMATEUR RADIO CLUB |
| Westmorland County, NB & Cumberland County, NS |
| WARC Field Day 2011 |
| Our Field Day for 2011 was held once again in the EOC at the E.D. Fullerton Building, Amherst, NS running from 3 pm local time June 25th through to 3 pm local time on Sunday the 26th. We operated in Class 1F as we did last year and our Section was Maritime (MAR). Thus, our exchange was "One Foxtrot Maritime" using the club call VE1WRC. Two of the club radios were used over the course of the contest – the newer Icom IC-7200 which did a great job and the older Yaesu HF rig. The Yaesu was found to have annoyingly tinny audio and was used for just a few contacts. Two antennas were used: a vertical and a long wire and we switched back and forth between them depending upon band used and conditions. Club members began to gather at the EOC before noon and some setup and testing was done prior to starting operations officially at 1800 Z. A casual approach to FD is usually taken with operators and computer loggers usually switching around whenever anyone needs a break. This year there was no prior publicity and we did not set up a 'guestbook' or invite any public officials for bonus points. The bands of operation not unexpectedly were 20, 40 and 80 metres with sporadic activity on 15 metres. There was one 2 metre contact. Before the 'test began, Chef Hannon (VE1AFH) fired up the 'barby' just outside the entrance and, once again, cooked up some great sausages and burgers. Everyone took their turn at Jim's dog & burger stand! Thanks to VE1AFH, no one went hungry. Jim returned and BBQed once again on Sunday about noon. Thanks for the refueling, Jim! Throughout this contest, we had an operator and a logger nearly all the time. The 'Op' ran the radio and made the contacts while the 'Dup' logged in the data into N3FJP's Field Day Logger software program on VE1SM's laptop computer. In the evening, one of our newer members, VE9TTT Paul, came in and operated until the wee hours and then went home and was back in again by 5:30 am or so. It is great to see such dedication and commitment helping out with Field Day. Paul made a good number of contacts and logged as well. A special thanks for your efforts, Paul! As day turned into night, the quintessential FD rain started to fall outside and some lightening and thunder was reported. What would FD be without thunder, lightening and rain? We were thankful we were not operating from a tent at that point. Fortunately, the rain and electrical storm subsided and it was drier on Sunday morning. One really cannot use the word "dry" referencing the spring and early summer of 2011! Only two intrepid ops made it through the night: VE1ZS FD Chair Al Christie and VE1CHI Jim Cleveland. Both Al and Jim worked together and then Al took a half hour of shut-eye and then Jim did, only to be interrupted by the building's security alarm sounding for the fifteenth time! As Jim had been designated to reset it, that was the end of his 15 minute snooze! Those on either side of the graveyard shift were VE9TTT Paul, VE1SM Peter and VE1EDP Bob. All had stayed late and all returned early. Thanks guys. During this event, VE1CHI Jim, had been working most of the night and wee morning hours on VE1JBL's Desktop computer. VE1JBL brought it in about 8 pm Saturday evening as it had suffered a recent virus attack and he asked VE1CHI to help fix it. Throughout the evening and overnight, this process went something like this: Save all data to a flash memory stick, reformat the HD and reinstall windows XP, copy over all data to the new installation, search for and install about four drivers which were not installed, including the all-important ethernet controller driver. VE1CHI Jim did mostly logging this year and was back and forth from the JBL computer to the laptop logger all night long - true multitasking! By morning, the VE1JBL Main Frame was back up and running with just one wee glitch in the re- installation of the Multimedia Audio Controller driver. The driver file was playing elusive on the internet. Later Sunday evening, VE1CHI emailed the missing driver file to VE1JBL. Additional club members appeared throughout Sunday morning and gave a badly needed break to the night ops. With the VE1AFH Barby fired up again, I think everyone was happy! |
| Photo above shows VE1ZS Al, left, operating and VE1CHI Jim logging at 4 am Sunday morning. Jim's left hand is taking the photo. |
| The Ops were getting weary by about 11 am Sunday morning and a quick poll determined that we would shut down about two hours early as we did last year. After all, this certainly would not jeopardize our 'numero uno' status in 1F Canada! At 16:09Z, VE1SM made the final contact of the contest and we pulled the plug on FD Operations for 2011 and began the cleanup. After VE1CHI saved the log to a flash memory stick from Peter's laptop, we began the task of putting things away and cleaning up the room. It felt great to get out of the stuffiness of the room, breathe fresh air and not listen to the din of HF Field Day noise! Overall, we made 163 phone contacts, 22 more than in 2010 during the same 22 hour period, and across several bands including 2, 15, 20, 40 and 80 metres. Over the next week or so, VE1CHI Jim will organize the official entry log and submit this to ARRL. Those 14 club members taking part and/or visiting the Field Day operations this year and in no particular order were: David Jones VE9DWJ, Paul Cant VE9TTT, Jim Hannon VE1AFH, Bob Perry VE1EDP, Peter Hebb VE1SM, Al Christie VE1ZS, Jim Langille VE1JBL, Jon Gordon VE1JSG, Lorne Anderson VE1BXK, Brad Ross VE1ZX, Mike Masters VE1XDT, Lloyd Smith VA1MAB, Mike Embree VE1MY and Jim Cleveland VE1CHI Thanks go out to this year's Field Day Committee: Al Christie VE1ZS (Chair), Jim Hannon VE1AFH, Peter Hebb VE1SM and Jim Cleveland VE1CHI. Photos here were taken by Jim, VE1CHI. Several others took photos and I will add them here on this page once I receive them. (Report submitted by VE1CHI, Jim C.) |
| Rather than fall later, VE1SM Peter decided to... |