The 2010 LARG - K4LRG Field Day Committee Kickoff Meeting
February 24, 2010 at the Purcellville Library, Purcellville, Virginia
(CW from Lower Left) Dodson Brown - AJ4EY, Dave Putman - KE4S, Jay Ives - KI4TXP, John Westerman - WB5ODJ, Bill Fenn - N4TS,
Frank Gentges - KØBRA,
Buddy Brewer - K4CJB, Doug Johnson - KJ4BRN, Chris Fri stad - KT9N, Paul Dluehosh - N4PD,
and John Unger - W4AU. Photograph by Norm Styer - AI2C.
Doug Johnson - KJ4BRN
Chairman, 2010 K4LRG Field Day CMTE |
(Purcellville, VA. February 28, 2010) I'd like to thank everyone that was able to attend the meeting. I also received numerous emails from members that were unable to attend the meeting. We had a very productive meeting and I'd like to summarize our decisions and discussion items.
Site Location:
John Westerman - WB5ODJ graciously offered the use of his farm again for the 2010 Field Day site. Everyone was very happy with the location last year and we accepted his offer.
5A or 6A:
We discussed the benefits of expanding to a 6A entry this year with the addition of another phone station. There was much discussion on this item. The conclusion was that we probably would not be unable to fully staff at a 6A level and that we should stay 5A. |
Phone Bands:
After deciding to remain 5A quite a bit of discussion on managing the phone bands between stations 2, 4 and GOTA. Dodson pointed out that GOTA is primarily an educational station and could move off 15m to another band to accommodate a phone station.
Some combinations suggested: station 2: 20/40m, station 4: 80/40/15m, GOTA 80/15m.
I'm not sure if we came to any conclusions about this. I'd expect that station captains will continue this discussion. We will need to figure out antenna / tower availability if we pursue this. We will also need to coordinate band switching between stations. I presume the N1MM network will help us prevent dupes when switching bands.
VHF/UHF and Satellite Communications:
Frank - KØBRA will setup a VF/UHF station and we will try to have a higher antenna this year. We'll encourage new hams to start out on this station to get some on air experience.
Frank -KØBRA and Bill - N4TS or possibly Tom Dawson - WB3AKD will setup a satellite station.
Digital:
It was suggested to have a digital station this year. Reasons to do this are the number of members that operate digital. Reasons not to do this: not many contacts to be made, conflicts with CW and phone on the same band, we would lose one of the 5A station to do digital. The group decided not to have a digital station this year.
2-Hour Time Slots:
We discussed if two hour slots would help with scheduling operators. A disadvantage was if you wanted to work a slot and have a break you would have to wait two hours before operating again. Decision was to schedule one hour slots but encourage signing up for two slots.
Misc Items:
Norm - AI2C mentioned that we might want to checkout antennas, feedlines, and baluns before FD.
N1MM Logger: We need to decide on which revision to use.
Paul - N4PD in an email to me mentioned a project of adding coax stubs to feedlines to reduce harmonics.
Gary - NC4S said we may need to build some new dipoles for the phone stations. He also discussed a broken winch on his trailer/tower that he has been unable to obtain replacement parts for.
Stations Captains:
Station 1 CW Norm Styer - AI2C & Gary Quinn - NC4S
Station 2 Phone Rick Miller - AI1V & Jay Ives - KI4TXP
Station 3 CW John Unger - W4AU
Station 4 Phone Rick Denney - KR9D
Station 5 CW Paul Dluehosh - N4PD
VHF/UHF Frank Gentges - KØBRA & Bill Fenn - N4TS
Satellite Frank Gentges - KØBRA or Tom Dawson - WB3AKD (note to self, ask Tom)
GOTA Dodson Brown - AJ4EY
Please let me know if I made any mistakes or omissions.
73 Doug Johnson - KJ4BRN
703-444-9149(H) 703-609-7544(C) 703-488-2397(W) |
