I have been a licensed ham for nearly twenty years but this is the first year I participated in Field Day. But hey… thanks to the folks at the Portland Amateur Radio Club (PARC), I’m already looking forward to next year.
I sat down with Pete W7PR, Secretary and Treasurer of PARC, a few days after Field Day to get his perspective on this year’s event. According to Pete, this was the first year MCARES officially partnered with PARC in the Field Day contest. And yes, it is a contest – one of about 19 contests sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) each year.
The real purpose of Field Day, along with being a contest and having fun, is to practice and demonstrate ham radio capabilities for emergency situations. The objective, according to the ARRL web site, is “To work as many stations as possible on any and all amateur bands (some exceptions) and to learn to operate in abnormal situations in less than optimal conditions.” Field Day is regularly scheduled the fourth full weekend in June; it begins at 11:00 AM Saturday and runs through 11:00 AM Sunday, local time.
Field Day operations were set up at Kelly Butte in Southeast Portland, just off I-205. Pete told me that years back, PARC used to hold their regular meetings up at OMSI when it was at the zoo. This was also the site for Field Day. Along with being a good operating site, it also provided good public exposure for amateur radio.
For those of you who are history buffs, Kelly Butte is named after pioneer Clinton Kelly who, according to Wikipedia, settled the area east of the Willamette River, in what’s now Southeast Portland, in 1848. It is a natural area, maintained by Portland Parks and Recreation, and covers an area of about 23 acres. Pete told me that there are still descendants of Mr. Kelly in the area, and a couple of years ago one of the family members attended the PARC Field Day. The Butte was once the site of a civil defense emergency operations center, built in 1955. The bunker is no longer in use and has been sealed. In the past the Butte was also home to a sixty-bed municipal hospital, a quarry, and a ten-million gallon water tank, replaced by the Mt. Tabor reservoirs.
My Field Day actually started on Friday. Along with about a dozen other volunteers we met mid-morning to prepare the site and set the lines which would be used to raise the antennas on Saturday morning. Pete uses what I would refer to as a mini spud-gun. This is an ingenious contraption made out of PVC pipe fitted with some valves and a pressure tank that is charged by a small, portable compressor. Pete uses the gun to launch a tennis ball which is attached to fishing reel and line. The ball is launched over the huge fir trees on the site. Then, stronger support line is attached and is then used to support the actual antennas. My hat is off to Pete and the rest of the antenna crew. Knowing where to locate the antenna and stringing it up is as much art as science.
On Field Day Saturday morning I met MCARES members John K7TY and Ross KD7TUR at the “Texas Hydro-Park” near Multnomah Village here in Portland. It is close to where I live and at an elevation of about 600 ft. The three of us set up QRP stations and operated for several hours with only minimal success. John and Ross both used Elecraft units and I set up a Yaesu FT-817. By the way, John biked all the way from his home in North Portland pulling his gear in a mini bike trailer. That’s dedication to both ham radio and biking.
Saturday afternoon, I made my way over to Kelly Butte to join the PARC/MCARES Field Day operations. I partnered with several other operators using an Elecraft HF unit owned by Adam KF7LJH, on 20 and 80 meters. We took turns at the radio and entering contacts in the logging software. Sorting out some of those pile-ups was a real challenge. But when you finally make the contact… that’s a great feeling. For those who haven’t experienced it, it’s quite addictive. I remember thinking, “I’ve got to get this one.”
At the PARC Field Day site, we operated as W7LT, category 4A (four stations, club, battery power), Oregon section. This category limits transmit power to 5 watts. One of the reasons to operate low power (QRP) according to Pete, is that each contact is worth more points than if you were operating at, say, 100 watts.
MCARES played a prominent role in this year’s event by locating the comms trailer on the site. Numerous MCARES members participated on air or visited the site. Many contributed food and beverages for the event. I especially enjoyed the fried chicken!
According to Pete, Lea AL7W, who was essentially the only CW operator, made approximately 175 contacts on 20, 40, and 80 meters. Lea was operating a vintage ICOM radio. Other equipment used included the Elecraft K3, an ICOM 7100, and a Yaesu FT-857. The antenna included a ZL special wire beam, a 40 meter horizontal loop, and an 80 meter dipole as well as a Buddipole. Official results from the contest are still being tabulated and will be published in the December issue of QST Magazine.
I asked Pete how this year compared to previous PARC Field Day events. He indicated that he thought attendance was up, in part due to the joint participation of PARC and MCARES. He anticipated that the number of contacts would be about average compared to previous years and that PARC would once again place in the top five finishers in the Field Day contest, nation-wide.
In years past, Pete indicated that the club had erected towers, with beams and rotators making set-up more complicated and frankly more dangerous. Safety is much less of an issue with the all-wire antenna set-up. The Butte has plenty of space for other antenna set-ups. PARC has more types of antennas available in the tool bag and Pete said if there is interest, the club would be willing help with the construction of other antenna types if they are not currently available. He is hopeful that future events will include satellite communications with other ground stations via orbiting satellites and with the International Space Station. Satellite contacts garner big points! Pete said in coming years he would like to see more CW operators, for two reasons. First, it would help to keep the discipline alive, and second, there is also a point multiplier when CW contacts are made, helping to increase the overall contest score.
I left Kelly Butte at about 10:30 PM Saturday evening and returned at about 9 AM Sunday. A number of PARC and MCARES members staffed the stations all night. The event concluded at 11 AM And then it was time to take down the antennas, stow the pop-up canopies and button up the MCARES trailer. As you can imagine, this entails a lot of work but thanks to the efforts of the many volunteers who helped, the take-down seemed to go smoothly.
I want to say thanks to those seasoned hams who helped me enjoy my first Field Day. I appreciated the opportunity to see how the event is set up and to experience the real satisfaction of making those contacts, helping to rack-up what will hopefully be sufficient points to once again place PARC in the top Field Day contest finishers in the country!
