Radios included an Icom IC-756 Pro, TenTec Omni VII, Icom IC-746 (for the GOTA) and a Icom 7000 for VHF plus HF spare. All these radios performed quite well despite the high temperatures.

The 100 Watt Elecraft K2 stood above the others not necessarily on performance, but the elegant way the radio’s owner configured his K2, 100 Watt Amplifier and 100 Watt Matcher.

For this Field Day, Tom brought his personally built Elecraft K2 QRP rig. Options include KNB2, KDSP2, KIO2 and KAT2.

Additionally, he brought his personally built Elecraft 100 Watt amplifier with the 100 Watt Antenna Tuner. Products include the KPA100 and KAT100-2.

No Case Change for 100 Watts
Elecraft has done a wonderful job with integration of all the above. The K2 and the KAT100-2 communicate with a serial cable. The usual approach for a 100 Watt K2 is to integrate the KPA100 into the K2’s case. However, Tom really wanted to keep the K2 a QRP rig. No problem. Elecraft supports the idea of placing the amp inside the KAT100-2 case. This leaves the K2 as is, but provides a power boost just by plugging in the KAT100-2 case. The K2 does not require a case change to get 100 Watts; Nice.

Look at this picture…

Clean, simple and effective Field Day Station with Elecraft K2

It just doesn’t get much simpler does it? Yes, I realize a typical radio with 100 Watts built in would yield one less box, but these are so small the extra box doesn’t get in the way. The two things missing from the above station layout is a good head set and CAT connection to the N3FJP logging software.

…and look at this…

The Elecraft K2 Field Day Station in Trailer with G3TXQ Hex Beam

Minimalist. Okay I agree anyone who brings a beam to Field Day is not quite minimalist, but really, even with the other dipole antenna, there isn’t all that much to this station.

Attaching the 100 Watt Tuner to a K2 with its own Tuner
Note the Elecraft K2 also has the QRP antenna tuner option KAT2. Both the KAT2 and KAT100-2 offer A/B antenna selection. Tom wondered if there would be a conflict or confusion with the K2 firmware if the KAT100-2 was added to the system already containing the KAT2. Specifically, when the KAT100-2 is attached, does the Antenna selector button know to move the antenna selection action from the KAT2 to the KAT100-2. The answer is yes it does. Simply connecting the KAT100-2 to the K2 causes the KAT2 to stay on one output, the one piped to the KAT100-2, and switches between 100 Watt antenna ports on the external box. Cool!

Elecraft to the Front Row
Tom has customized an ideal station for Field Day and I enjoy using it every year. As this year’s Field Day Chairman, I placed the K2 as the primary HF station, closest to our visitors are and showcased it to everyone I could. You hear that Elecraft? I showcase your products and don’t even own a K2 or K3 yet!

The K2 Station worked plenty of Phone and CW contacts with its wire dipole and hex beam on ports A and B of the KAT100-2. The K2 with Hex Beam worked the only Pacific contact, Phone, from our Virginia Field Day location; I was stoked.

Conclusion
With radios like the Elecraft K2, one can realize an effective Field Day station. By moving the 100 Watt amplifier from the K2 case to the KAT100-2 case, the K2 can switch to QRP with simple external cable changes instead of cabinet swaps.

Bravo Elecraft.

Even though building a new K2 kit costs more than the radio trades for on E-Bay, I plan on a purchase anyway just for the fun of assembling my own radio; I will seriously consider duplicating Tom’s configuration above. I can’t wait.

One of the stations used an Elecraft K2 with an external power amp plus the 100 watt auto tuner. The Elecraft auto tuner provides two antenna ports. We connected a large dipole to channel 1 and left the other open for another antenna.

At some point during Field Day I decided things were going well enough for me to concentrate on my 20-15-10-06 meter hex beam of the G3TXQ variety.

As you can tell by the first photo below, the hex was hastily shoved into the trailer. However, I used good Flexweave wire for the elements and untangling the mess was straight forward. I decided the put the hex beam on the K2 station since it had the open antenna port and, for some reason, I think the K2 and the hex beam complement each other.

The hex beam was a bit loose in its rigging causing the elements to slump a bit. However, the thing tuned right up on 20, 15 and 10 meters similar to its debut during the Virginia QSO Party. Six meters was way off; I think the 10 meter wires were a bit too close to the six meter wires. No matter, the K2 had no 6 meters and 10 meters seemed to work well enough.

Results

Did it work? Boy it sure did. During my turn at the K2 Phone I found the hex beam provided two to four S units improvement against the dipole on 20 and 15 meters.

Late Saturday night I worked 4,800 mile contact with Hawaii (PAC) from Virginia with ease on 20 meters… on Phone! The Hex Beam and K2 bagged the only PAC contact of the four stations on site.

Several more 20 meter contacts were easily made to the West coast including LAX, SDG, SCV and WWA. I wish Field Day used Sections as multipliers, but I was glad to be able to add fresh contacts to the club’s totals. Tom, owner of the K2, quickly added many CW contacts using the beam.

The hex beam was up only about 15 feet and still worked quite well. Amazing.

We did have a rotator, but did not have it aligned with North. That was troubling, but I was just glad to be able to steer it at all at Field Day. We used a Channel Master TV type rotator. Yes, it works, but clearly is over stressed by the inertia of the hex beam despite its low mass. Anyone contemplating a rotator for their hex beam is well advised to “up” the rotator ratings quite a bit to ensure mechanical robustness.

Of all the compact compromise Yagi-Uda beam designs out there, I have to say the hex beam lives up to its own hype. There’s no magic in the hex beam (no matter what anyone tells you). It can’t outperform full size single band Yagi-Uda designs. However, for the investment, it is a superb value and deserves to be on anyone’s short list of antenna choices.

Choice Matters

The most important thing learned at this Field Day is having two antennas to select between makes a big difference in operating success. For some reason North Florida was alive with contacts and I sometimes used the hex beam and other times the wire dipole on 20 and 15 meters.

Yes, it’s Field Day and we tend to be minimalist. However, I designed this hex beam to be very portable and think it fits well with the Field Day theme with its simple tent peg tripod mount. It nicely complements a wire dipole.

The G3TXQ 20-15-10-06 meters Hex Beam antenna is a keeper for Field Days of the future.

Here is a picture.

Trailer Load for Field Day 2010

My finest hour this is not. It will do though.

Good luck with Field Day 2010 everyone.

John

However, we always forget some obvious items every year.

The lessons learned from sunshine related issues are obvious. We forgot ways to shade them again this year because we got so busy with other preparation details.

Here are a few lessons learned from our Field Day written in the form of system requirements.

1. The network routers shall be set to one fixed speed rather than auto-negotiate the speed to keep the network connections more seamless.
2. The network routers should have their speed set to the minimum speed of 1 Mbps to provide the best sensitivity (this is plenty fast enough for the meager network needs with the N3FJP software).
3. The network routers should have their RF output power set to below the maximum (250 mW for the Linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT) if the Field Day site is hot
4. All network nodes shall use static IP addresses.
5. Network nodes shall not use DHCP addresses.
6. The Network shall not use domain or host names.
7. The radios shall be protected from direct sunshine at all times.
8. The computers shall be protected from direct sunshine at all times.

During Field Day setup we ran into difficulty. The network came up just fine, but the N3FJP clients keep popping up the error about breaking link with the server’s database file. Changing the speed in the DD-WRT routers from variable to a fixed rate fixed the problems. We picked the slowest 802.11b speed of 1 Mbps to ensure the routers had maximum sensitivity. This solved the connection issues perfectly.

We also raised the RF power output from the default of 80 mW or so to the maximum value of 250 mW. This ran just fine, but when our WRT54G specialist found out what we did, he expressed concern the routers might overheat in the summer sun. We agreed and lowered the power output values to 100 mW… almost the same as the default.

The network ran perfectly after all the above requirements were implemented. Hopefully next year we won’t forget the basic steps above and start Field Day on time.

It seems the network connection breaks just a moment while possible wireless speed connections are constantly re-examined. We have some very far 802.11 links and this causes nothing but trouble if you have the client server connection like that in N3FJP FDNet 2.5.

We set our units’ parameters to the slowest speed possible and the performance of our network connections went through the roof.

Back to Field Day…

If you are using generators at your Field Day please have a look at these posts for some previous lessons learned…

The Honda Inverter generators are, by far, the most fantastic generators ever to hit the market. Even with that fuel cap issue, they are still worth it. So very quite and such clean power… nice.

GL

We have done this every year I have been involved with my club’s Field Day and have had mostly good results. We usually have one Boy Scout troop stop by and make a few QSOs each. Also some technicians in our club like to operate the station during the late hours to get a chance to do SSB HF (yes we always have a control operator with valid privileges). Also it seems every year a new ham really enjoys the simplicity of the GOTA station without the concern over band sharing the other stations deal with.

Every year our GOTA is set up pretty much the same…

• Icom 746
• HF Antenna – Wire Dipole
• Microphone
• Key
• Computer for logging
• and that’s about it

Last year I posted observations about what the youth seem to enjoy most about our Field Day 2008…

For all our GOTA station offered, it was the Digital operations in one of the regular Field Day stations that really caught their eye. Like I mention in the post, they seem to think of it much like the texting they do with their cell phones.

Give the people what they want…

This year our GOTA station will include the following additional components…

• Computer-Radio Interface – The Navigator from US Interface
• A proper interface cable from the interface to the Icom 746
• A very nice Begali two paddle morse code key
• MixW Software (and maybe Digipan)
• A powered USB port splitter to ensure the Navigator gets all the power it needs since the laptop USB port is sometimes weak

To put it another way, we are outfitting the GOTA tent with serious gear and features to ensure any and all possible modes including the many digital modes can and will be demonstrated.

We intend to capitalize on the similarity between our amateur radio digital modes and texting to draw some interest towards licensing.

My advice to you is to spiff up your GOTA station with better gear and prominently feature PSK31 and RTTY during the demonstration.

GL

The excitement causes some of the most odd assumptions to occur.

Visit…

Field Day Urban Legends, Myths and FAQs

…for more details.

If you are thinking of participating in your local club’s Field Day festivities or are heading to the campground with your family for a Bravo station, bonus points are available.

One of my favorites is the Alternate Power Field Day bonus.

To quote the ARRL Field Day rules for 2009…

“7.3.8. Alternate Power: 100 bonus points for Field Day groups making a minimum of five QSOs without using power from commercial mains or petroleum driven generator. This means an “alternate” energy source of power, such as solar, wind, methane or water. This includes batteries charged by natural means (not dry cells). The natural power transmitter counts as an additional transmitter. If you do not wish to increase your operating category, you should take one of your other transmitters off the air while the natural power transmitter is in operation. A separate list of natural power QSOs should be submitted with your entry. Available to Classes A, B, E, and F.”

Last year one of our club members brought a fold out solar panel array. Originally he hooked it up to a FM HT. The solar panels powered the HT just fine, but no one was on the air to make contact with.

Then an Elecraft K1 transceiver arrived. Hmmm…

Since the K1 is an HF transceiver one of the other stations (we were 4A last year) would have to cease operation while we operated the solar powered station.

No problem. We went to our CW tent and…

• Disconnected the antenna coax from the main CW transceiver (a Yeasu FT-2000 by the way – nice)
• Connected the antenna coax to the K1
• Flipped the solar panels out along the ground
• Hooked up the power to the K1
• One person operated the key and the K1
• While the person in the CW tent logged the QSOs on the N3FJP Network software
• and made note of these particular QSOs as “Alternate Power” contacts
• Logged five Alternate Power QSOs
• Reversed the process to get the CW Station back the way it was and continue to operate normally
• Done!

Here is our K1 operator, logger (in the tent) and the impressive solar array…

Making Solar Power QSOs during Field Day

This was pretty easy really.

In this case, the low current draw of the Elecraft K1 really helped. We did not need any temporary storage from a battery in parallel with the solar output. It all just worked straight off the solar power source. Nice.

You may desire to try the above and I really do suggest it. It is fun. If your rig needs a bit more power than the K1, consider adding the battery and letting it charge for a bit before making those five QSOs.

I hope to hear all of you on Field Day. Good Luck.

It took two years, but we finally managed a super reliable wireless network for our ARRL Field Day operations.

This year we will be at the same location and plan to accommodate up to five HF stations plus GOTA, VHF and, hopefully, some kind of Satellite station. Also a natural power station is planned, but will be co-located with an existing station.

The layout within the 300 meter circle will be close to what is shown in this picture…

Field Day Facility Layout

Our operation likes to keep the station operating positions seperated by hundreds of feet. In the past we typically used three single mode stations to alleviate the need for handling QSO dupe checking. However, the modern Field Day operation has site wide multi-station dupe checking with centralized and computerized logging to provide a competitive edge.

Simple Network Diagram of Field Day 2009 802.11

Features include:

• LinkSys WRT54G Wireless 802.11b and 802.11g Routers (Pre revision 6) – Alternatively you can get the WRT54GL which is the Linux compatible LinkSys product that can still accept the DD-WRT firmware.
• DD-WRT Firmware for WRT54G Routers
• MFJ-1800 2.4GHz WiFi dBi Yagi Antenna for 802.11b and 802.11g wireless networks. Includes camera tripod socket. This antenna looked pretty cheesy at first, but after using them for years, I find they work very well and are a solid, simple, useful design.
• HyperGain HG2409U Omnidirectional 2.4GHz Wireless LAN Antenna with 8.5 dBi. This sturdy antenna serves as the center point of the network with all remote yagi antennas pointing to it.
• N3FJP Field Day Network Logging Software – version 2.5 – one of many very useful and simple to use applications from N3FJP.com

Notes:

• The Blue boxes are the Linksys WRT54G routers running the DD-WRT firmware.
• The routers do not need the IP address unless you wish to access router statistics via the built-in web page feature of the DD-WRT operating system.
• The laptop PC at the VHF operating position was so close to the “server room” it did not require the features, power and external antenna features provided by the Linksys WRT54G router
• The “server room” was a small two-person back-packing tent. Its small size kept folks out to allow IT guys to debug in peace

Our transmitter stations were about as far apart as the rules allow so we used LinkSys WRT54G routers with the DD-WRT v23 software to “bridge” in the remote stations to one central unit which served as the site router. This made it easy to incorporate 2.4GHz antennas: omni on the router and those MFJ Yagi antennas on the bridges thanks to the external antenna connections. Laptops near enough to the omni router antenna needed no bridge and just connected via their internal wireless.

MFJ 2.4 GHz Yagi Antenna

The following lessons learned from 2006 and 2007 were carefully applied in 2008 resulting in almost zero downtime of the network:

1. Even if your router supports it, do not use DHCP addresses with anything other than wired or close in 802.11 PCs. Any little interruptions may cause DHCP assignments to expire creating a temporary outage; This is something the N3FJP client-server model just cannot tolerate. Use Static IP Addresses
2. Turn off 802.11 link speed autonegotiation in the DD-WRT admin settings. This will ensure the routers spend no time constantly trying to go “a little faster” resulting in short, but frequent network interruptions. These small interruptions cause N3FJP clients to lose connection to the FDNet.mdb file on the server resulting in the dreaded “unable to open database” error.
3. Use the slowest 802.11 link speed for high network reliability. Resist the temptation to use the fastest 802.11 speed available. Yes it is true you can blaze away at 54 Mbps, if the link allows it, but the best 802.11 receiver sensitivity is available if you pick a slower speed. We used 1 Mbps on our seven computer network running N3FJP with no problems at all. Within 802.11b the WRT54 receiver sensitivity for 11 Mbps is from 7-10 dB worse than 1 Mbps; 1 Mbps, which is simple BPSK, is significantly more sensitive and there is little reason not to use it. If you decide to select 5.5 Mbps in 802.11b you might consider using 6 Mbps 802.11g instead; the OFDM may prove more tolerant of multi-path effects than the CCK modulation used for the higher 802.11b modes.
4. Resist the temptation to use any kind of domain names, machine names, host names in your Field Day network. Use IP Addresses Only to keep your networking simple and straight forward.
5. If you use N3FJP FDNet 2.5 and accept “IP addressing only” is wise advice, your client computers will browse to the server’s data file like…
   • this \\192.168.2.100\directory\FDNet.mdb
   • and never ever this \\soandsosPC\directory\FDNet.mdb
6. Put your N3FJP FDNet Server Computer on the router 802.11 unit. This is the one that should have an omni antenna. It is true any station logging computer can be the server and that’s fine. However, the idea here is to make the stations all clients so if their power systems screw up, the data is safely stored on the server. Also keeping the critical server computer away from the high RF environment of a station should help reliability.
7. Whatever you do, do not connect two directional antennas to the two diversity ports of the Linksys WRT54G and point them in different directions. If you do this on your central router you will confuse local laptops with the wildly varying signal strengths. The best thing to do is leave one of those little antennas on one antenna port and cable up the after market antenna on the other port.
8. Make sure the central Omni WAN Antenna is at least 10 feet high to get over the heads of folks or you will have outages.
9. Use short, but dressable cables for the 2.4GHz signals and make sure it is the “good” stuff as ever dB matters. Make the cables long enough to allow for a trip free secure installation. Our central Omni antenna has 20 feet of LMR-400 “like” cable and works very well.
10. Consider a server only tent to act as your “server room” where “IT” folks can debug in peace.
11. Make a diode “oring” cable with a Gelcell and AC Power dongle for the Linksys routers so they stay up during generator refueling. If you don’t you might have to “re-browse” to the \\192.168.2.100\fd\fdlog.mdb file on the server computer. (We did not do this this year so we had to re-browse to the server sometimes and stop and start the FDNet program). Alternatively, a UPS on each router can work, but it may not be compatible with all generators.
12. Befriend your IT guys and buy them a dinner as navigating through the amazing mess of the many different ways Windows does networking is a total pain in the rump. Of the many laptops we had there was zero consistency in how they behaved when accessing the share on the server computer.
13. DD-WRT firmware for the LinkSys WRT54g router allows you to increase the power beyond Part 15 limits. If you exceed Part 15 power limits you are now transmitting as an Amateur Radio Operator. Obey Part 97 Identification and Power Limit Rules by putting your call-sign in the SSID of the routers and keeping the power under 100 watts (no, the Linksys cannot be set to 100 watts let alone 1 watt so you’re cool). Warning: if you raise the power in the LinkSys, it runs hotter; This could be a problem for commercial gear used outside on a hot day in June – use only the power you need.
14. Beware the dew point in the evenings. Most of our gear we take to Field Day is not rated for condensing environments. This includes the nighttime when the temperature reaches the dew point. Dew on unprotected circuit boards frequently results in circuit failure. Most ham gear and certainly the Linksys routers are designed to be inside the conditioned air space of a comfy home. There is not a whole lot you can do about this except, maybe, keep air flowing past your gear if possible. Just understand everything you take to Field Day should be considered disposable – including our radios. Sigh…

Results:

2007 was a terrific and efficient Field Day where we finally used the FDNet program the way it was intended to be used. Our 3A was comprised of SSB, CW and for the first time a multi-mode station that could do SSB, CW and Digital. The multi-mode proved priceless and various operators came and went adding CW or Phone skills. Previously we kept this third station as a Digital only station, but this time it pulled its weight nicely. Having global band-mode dupe checking is priceless.

The real-time QSO counts for CW, Digital and Phone ensured the competition between CW and Phone was kept lively.

We had a VHF station too and its computer connected via normal wireless to the server “room” just feet away.

A fellow came with a Satellite setup so we gave him an IP address and he was up and running on his internal wireless in no time.

The ability to bring additional copies of FDNet into the master log this easily (despite the Windows Share difficulties) was just too cool.

We had similar success in 2008 with a 4A deployment.

Result? – We brought the highest score in many years if not ever!

We look forward to 2009.

For years I have used a home brew fully balanced matcher of a design found on the Internet. However, the results have been less than what I would expect.

A club member mentioned he had available a big Johnson Match Box. I said please bring it. Here it is on our operating table with the antenna feed connected.

Johnson Match Box

I found the unit tuned up my antenna marvelously well and provided, what we felt, the best performance out of this dipole. The tuning was smooth, crisp and easy. A few operators bemoaned the idea of not being able to push a button for auto tune, but, come on, this just isn’t that hard. Set the band and twiddle two controls till the Icom-746pro is happy and puts out full power. It just worked.

The sunspot cycle is showing signs of rise as we have several openings on 15, 10 and 6 meters this year. This antenna worked very well on 10 meters. I realize it has highly directional lobes on the higher bands, but it kept us busy. As simple as this antenna system is, it worked. The middle of the dipole was up a good 48 feet by the way.

The Johnson Match Box is a link coupled matcher. Go to Cebik’s site for the excellent full explanation of link coupled tuners. I was so impressed with the link coupled approach I purchased a couple of units from Ebay: one homebrew model more like the Annecke approach and a low power version of the Johnson Match Box.

Front view of homebrew link coupled antenna matcher

Rear view of homebrew link coupled antenna matcher

Front view of Johnson Viking Match Box

Inner view of Johnson Viking Match Box

The home brew adds the series adjustable capacitor in the input circuit just like Annecke.

The Johnson has a much more pronounced input link coil.

If these units work as efficiently as the link coupled example during Field Day 2008, I will be happy. Both of my new units are lower power than the Field Day example, however, the topology is the same.

This year we extensively used the “operator initials” field in the N3FJP Field Day Network 2.8 logging software package. Operators used their call-sign as their ‘initials’ while honored guests used their actual initials.

The site-wide log offered many great analysis possibilities. One particularly interesting metric we tracked this year was QSO rates. We generated graphs of QSO totals vs. Time Between QSOs. Here is an example of the entire log…

QSO Rates of Entire Club Field Day Log

We are able to further parse the QSO data by operator, mode, band and any other parameter recorded by the very nice N3FJP Field Day Network logging software.

This year was especially cool because many operators who are not regular contesters made an effort to come by and operate. This is fantastic. We had high hopes to make our 4A Field Day operation inviting to all our members young and old. Indeed young and old came out and had a great time.

What I noticed about some of the older operators was their desire to use pen and paper to record call-signs and exchange information of a QSO and then move to the computer keyboard to record the QSO. This frequently resulted in several dupes since these folks were not capitalizing on the logging computer’s instant dupe checking.

There are many reasons to not use pen and paper, but I wondered if the overall efficiency might be one of them. Since I know which operators used paper and since the wonderful N3FJP software records each operator’s identity all I did was add a field to the database and marked the QSOs initially recorded on paper.

Here is the graph of the very same Field Day results of the operators who logged straight to computer…

QSO Rates of Computer Loggers

…and here is the graph showing the performance of the paper users…

QSO Rates of Paper Loggers

It seems at least a little clear that jotting down QSO information on paper in a contesting environment places an obvious obstacle to operator efficiency. If you look at the graphs above it is clear that most of the QSOs made were not only made more efficiently, but in far greater numbers by the operators skipping the use of paper.

Many good Ham Radio Contest Logging software packages exist to help the Amateur Radio operator record those all important QSOs. Good titles to consider include N3FJP, DX4Win, Ham Radio Deluxe, N1MM. Prolog2k, Winlog32 and WriteLog. Instant Dupe Checking alone should make you want to remove paper form your logging flow.

There are many reasons why data is different between groups of attributes like paper and non-paper QSO loggers. Is it jumping to conclusions? You be the judge.