Reston Town Center Station

The station and the log of the Reston Town Center Station - AI2C was  operated and maintained by Norm, Bob - KF4VBM and Mary - KF4UUY. This station remained on the air until 1745 hours when the support convoy with the Rad Cross Event Director and Mark - N3GWM closed on the Reston Town Center. The thunderstorms did occur late in the afternoon and by 1645 hours all out stations were off the air including Mark - N3GWM. So the KD4CSO cross band station was also closed at that time. Operation continued with AI2C on a 5/8-wave whip and the 4-element quad. But no stations were contacted except Gene - N3EV operating mobile who at 1728 hours had managed a high operating location and reported that the Ashburn site closed at 1705 hours.

The Reston Town Center station was configured to operate from a small portable table and portable chairs adjacent to the back of Norm's 1984 Ford F-150 pickup truck. The camper shell on the pickup truck is equipped with bed, benches, light, and table and would have been the operation location if the weather turned bad. The 40 Meter HF antenna was the first thing in the air by 6:15 AM and this early setup avoided all the traffic congestion soon occurring as the food vendors and bike riders began to arrive. The HF dipole was supported at the center on 3 Radio Shack 5-foot portable 1.25 inch metal poles. The BALUN was taped to the top of the pole and the antenna wire pulled out to adjacent trees. A 5-foot step ladder that was brought alone and was used to reach up into the tree to tape the center support pole into a fork on a branch of the small 25-foot trees.  The coax cable composed of a 1/4-wave length of RG-59 cable and 60-feet of RG-8 cable, was taped down at walking places and routed along and below the curb to the radio. Bright red engineering survey tape was used to mark the pole and cable.

Bob - KF4VBM's dual band Kenwood TH-79 handheld was used with a rubber duck antenna. Prior to figuring out how to get Bob's rig on the assigned 440 MHz  frequency, we used Mark - N3GMW's dual band mobile radio powered by two 6-volt portable batteries provided by Mark but it soon developed a stuck mike problem and we switched to Bob's handheld.

It was interesting to note that there are folks out there listening. Beside the HF out stations advising us that we had a stuck mike someone drove up in the Ford Explorer, jumped out, ran over, shouted that we had a stuck mike and immediately jumped back in his Green Ford Explorer and quickly drove off. As he jumped into his car, he responed to my question: "Well, who are you?', with a callsign which I believe was a KGoCGH. We never really got a chance to thank that masked man.

When the storm can up and all other stations were closed, the operation went into a mobile configuration with an Icom 260A multimode 2 Meter rig and a 5/8-wave antenna. After dropping Bob - KF4VBM at his car at the Leesburg Church of the Nazarene, Norm arrived home at 1900 hours.