I’ve been a bit slow in posting about Field Day, partly because I spent most of Sunday catching up on sleep, worked all day Monday, finished the Field Day video Tuesday night, and still haven’t started editing the still photos. Anyways… I produced a short video again this year of things happening at our Field Day site. The Vimeo video is embedded above, and is also available in sub-optimal quality at YouTube. I think I still like last year’s video better, but I was able to get set-up and antenna raising into the video this year.

The 2010 W0AK Field Day went really well. I ended up at the site at about 10 a.m. Saturday morning to help set up. Station set-up was well underway by the time I had arrived, and the antenna raising was about to commence. It was a hot and sticky day — about 90 degrees with a heat index just shy of 100.

PowerFilm Solar set up their 1 kW military-grade Solar Shade the night before, and a storm had blown through the area at about 5:30 a.m. Saturday, and boy I really underestimated the strength of that structure. It stood up to about 60 mph winds without even batting an eye.

The Solar Shade powered pretty much everything except the logging computers without a hiccup. The solar power was stored in two 120 Ah Humvee batteries, which were more than enough for our needs. Having such a unique, huge structure there for solar power gave us great talking points with visitors to our Field Day site.

We had two dignitaries visit us on Saturday from served agencies (which scored us extra points!): Joyce Flinn, the Readiness and Response Bureau Chief for the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division; and Lt. Col. Kevin Plagman of the Iowa National Guard. Both took a tour of the Field Day site and learned the purpose and goals of the Field Day event, and then visited with operators.

Unfortunately, as in years past, Field Day was competing with other major events in the Des Moines metro area — this year it was the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Drake and the Des Moines Arts Festival downtown, so it’s difficult for amateur radio to compete with these events for news coverage. I did a phone interview with WHO Newsradio 1040 Friday morning but I didn’t get a chance to listen to see if we made the cut.

After dinner, I sat down at our 15m sideband station and called CQ for about an hour and a half, making just over 100 contacts, mostly with stations on the east coast that were booming into Iowa.

At about 2:30 a.m. a storm began to approach our location. There was plenty of lightning to our north and northwest, rendering the bands more useless as they came closer. Eventually the gust front blew through, we gave up with the static, disconnected and powered off, and covered the stations with plastic sheeting before retreating to our cars where most of us took naps until the storm left the area at 5 a.m. Luckily everything stayed dry, but the lightning now to our south was still making the bands too noisy to do any meaningful operating. The air cooled down by a brisk 20 degrees by 5 a.m. — a welcome change from the 90-degree temperatures we had been experiencing late in the week.

With the breakfast crew’s arrival soon after the storm, I decided it was time for me to throw in the towel for the night and go home to get some sleep.

I had made the goal for our Field Day to reach 1,000 contacts this year after making 915 last year. Even with the thunderstorms disrupting the event for a good 4 hours, we accomplished this goal and made 1036 contacts. The only mode that we suffered a decrease of contacts in was PSK31 — last year we made 1 PSK contact, and this year we made none — a sharp decline from last year! Okay, maybe it’s just one contact… but still…

Field Day is the last major event for my club until the chili feed and auction around Thanksgiving time — but planning has already started for next year’s Field Day. In the past year, there’s been a push to move out of our comfort zone at Big Creek State Park, where we’ve held the event for years, to a new, more urban location. We looked at moving the event this year but it didn’t pan out. We are compiling a list of possible locations for next year, and will be narrowed down in the coming months before further planning.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon this little gem on YouTube from amateur radio’s heyday. The uploader writes:

Found in the attic of my dad, the “real” W3PYF, Clarence Snyder – a short piece of 8mm film of a Delaware Lehigh Amateur Radio Club Field Day from, I am guessing from the cars, 1950. I recognize my dad’s 1950 Dodge as one of the “shacks.” The heavy-set guy is the “real” W3OK; my father is the guy running around in the undershirt. I recognize Bill Werner and the faces of a few others. Hope you all enjoy seeing what ham radio was like in the war surplus era; you could buy a pair of “Command” sets for about $10 back then on “radio row” in NYC where the World Trade Center once stood (you could buy them for less at hamfests, if the original owner screwed them up).

It’s interesting to see how technology and Field Day has evolved since then. Thanks for sharing this with us, Mel!

Operating under the lights overnight at the Jollyboat Shelter at Big Creek State Park near Polk City, Iowa, for the 2009 W0AK Field Day.

Again this year I will be operating under the callsign W0AK for this year’s DMRAA/ARTS Field Day that will be based at Big Creek State Park near Polk City, Iowa (just outside of Des Moines). I will be mostly operating during the overnight hours, since my girlfriend will be home from 9-land for the weekend from her clinical rotation… she’s demanding attention even though it’s Field Day weekend! The nerve!

There’s been a lot of shop talk about what equipment everyone will be using and what class. W0AK (along with the GOTA station W0SCI) will be operating Class 2A, Iowa — same as last year. We may not be totally on battery power, since we will have one or two Flex SDR machines that seem to be happier on AC mains.

1 kW Power Shade by PowerFilm Solar

PowerFilm Solar, based just north of us in Ames, is graciously donating a 1 kW military-grade Solar Shade which is basically a large tent with flexible solar panels. I can’t wait to show it off. We’re still deciding on what will be put underneath the Power Shade, our operating area or the welcome area. The solar panels will be used to charge the batteries used for the radios.

Two generators will power the logging PC’s, lights, and the coffee pot. The generators will be a 3 kW EU3000I and a 2 kW EU3000I.

The radios and antennas may consist of (rough plan):

• Flex SDR
• Kenwood TS-690SAT
• Kenwood TS-850
• Yaesu FT-100
• Whatever other radios people want to bring out
• Two masts/rotators/controllers, with 200′ control line
• Carolina Windom
• Ladder line
• G5RV
• Buddipole (6m)
• Some random antennas and towers from the NWS station

I feel pretty confident that our club has come up with a very good operating plan. Last year we made just shy of 1,000 QSO’s, and I’m hoping that we can break that number. Looks like the weather in central Iowa will cooperate for Field Day activities, which is a much-needed reprieve from the daily heavy rainfall we’ve been receiving.

If you’re in the Des Moines area, please do come out to our Field Day site to see what the DMRAA is all about. It doesn’t cost a thing, and there will be free food! Operating activities start at 1 p.m. Saturday and goes until 1 p.m. Sunday. We will also be holding a potluck supper on Saturday at about 5 p.m. For a map and directions, visit the W0AK Field Day website.

At last year’s W0AK Field Day I decided on a whim to produce a short video with only my Nikon Coolpix P3. It mostly focuses on the ambience and atmosphere of the operation aspect of it. This year I think I’m going to do the same, but hopefully catch some of the setup and some time with dignataries that we have invited. The only thing I’m grimacing about for this year’s video is the audio quality. For a point-and-shoot, the P3′s video quality is very decent (YouTube’s converting lost most of the quality though) but the audio is downright crap, so it’ll be difficult to do interviews or sound bites. I wouldn’t mind receiving a loaner 5D Mk III though…

CB has keydowns.

What’s a keydown? I too scratched my head the first time I heard it. When I clicked on over to Google to find out more, I didn’t find much on the subject due to outdated websites and broken links, apparently because 90% of CB users online used the now-defunct Geocities to host their sites. When I did stumble upon a site with information, I was wading hip-deep into the cesspool that is CB slang. I had to veer off the course to find out what words like “mudduck” “Watergate tapes” “two-pill” and “swing” meant. By then, I was in too deep to not find out what the hell a keydown competition is. After all, they had their own rap song and music video about this hobby.

After I spent a few late nights delving into CB radio culture, I was intrigued at the pieces of the puzzle I put together.

Apparently, keydown competitions are where CB users gather at an outdoor location, typically in the southern states, to show off their rigs with fellow hobbyists. The rigs are usually early-model dark-colored Chevy Suburbans outfitted with a CB radio, amplifiers that sometimes occupy the entire vehicle cabin, and usually a very large vertical antenna array attached to the front bumper via a heavy-duty steel beam. These outfits require so much power that the engines are upgraded to include four or more alternators. These rigs are clearly intended to transmit with more than the 4 watts of power that is allowed by the FCC.

So what’s the point of a keydown competition? Contestants compete two at a time by parking at a line side-by-side, very much like the starting line for a drag racing competition. Contestants are given directions and a CB channel to tune to. The “flagger” — the person that signals the start of the competition — will raise his or her hands to signal the beginning of the competition (and to begin keying using full power) and then will lower his or her hands to signal that the competition is over and to stop keying. The loser of the competition can request his or her competitor for a rematch.

While the contestants are keying down, each contestant usually yells his or her handle into the radio (usually resulting in over-deviation). The winner of the competition is decided by which contestant can be heard over the radio, as identified by the handle they were yelling into the radio or another identifier (the winner in the embedded video above was identified by saying ONE ONE ONE repetitively). The more power, the better.

In the case that neither contestant was heard, there is usually one person designated to keep an official “Watergate tape,” which means that person records the audio of the competition. Whichever contestant is heard on the Watergate tape wins. No other tapes can be accepted as a Watergate tape.

A frame grab from a keydown video. Excessive RF caused audio bleedover into the video camera and caused image distortion before the RFI forced the camera to eject the VHS tape and shut the camera's power off.

What does the winner receive? Depending on the event, the winner will receive a cash reward or a trophy, but he or she will always win the bragging rights. There are indeed contestants with targets on their backs — the Brett Favre, the A-Rod, the Dale Earnhardt of CB radio. “Sha Sha,” “Blue Gill,” and “T-Bird” seem to be the people to beat. You can view a video of Sha Sha beating T-Bird here.

While a lot of my colleagues in the amateur radio community can easily discount CB’ers (or “chickenbanders” as they may affectionately call them), generally, the engineering and creativity that keydown contestants surprised me. The know-how required to modify radios, amplifiers, and vehicle engines to achieve such outrageously illegal accolades is impressive. I don’t condone violating FCC regulations, I’m not the one doing such things, but really, I was surprised to see this level of engineering. That’s just my opinion, and I’m sure that my amateur radio buddies are grinding their teeth right now reading this.

Regardless, I found this activity intriguing because of it’s simplicity and relative unfamiliarity here in the northern states. It would be interesting to see these vehicles and to watch a few competitions — but I would have to bring a lead apron along.

Another video was posted on YouTube by Steve, WG0AT, from a QRP contest a few weeks ago. Steve is also called the Goathiker, you may have heard of him. He takes his goats Rooster and Peanut, who faithfully carry Steve’s equipment to mountaintops to operate QRP. This video was shot atop Mount Herman in Colorado, which is 9054 ft above sea level for the Polar Bear Moonlight Madness event.

All of his videos are put together so well, and I encourage you to check out Rooster and Peanut’s YouTube channel and I definitely recommend watching the video of their 2009 Field Day expedition.

Team K0DMX - NWS Des Moines - after sunrise

Field Day and SRD are the only times I really get to work on HF for several varying reasons. Not to mention it’s a very laid-back event, not really as competitive as Field Day (although we do log QSO’s… and Des Moines has been at the top for the past few years), and it gives me a reason to stay up all night.

When I got to the office, George KK7FM and Shane N0ZXJ were still there. Eventually they both left, as George was tired and Shane had already worked a full day at the NWS on Friday. We kept at least two operators on the rigs at all times. While I was there, 80m seemed to be the only open band and for quite a while the only ones on the band were stations we already worked.

Most of the chatter was about the cold weather all around. It hovered around 14-18 degrees most of the night, but there was one sub-zero station in northern Minnesota and a decently balmy station in Florida. It had just snowed in several parts of the southwest as well.

Right around 5 or 6 a.m., new operators on the east coast started waking up and spinning the dials, getting ready to check into nets. Before activity started to pick up, I plopped myself down on 3.850.00 and called CQ. At 7 a.m. I had a deluge of stations calling me on that frequency. I worked about 200 stations on that frequency within about three and a half hours, including both coasts and some Canadian stations. It was a good feeling. Of course I had the sporadic bursts of smartasses interrupting and asking in several rude ways what the hell kind of contest “Skywarn” is without identifying themselves, but it was overall a fun experience.

I ended up leaving to go back home around 10 a.m. — I planned to stay longer than 8 hours, but my ability to form coherent, non-rambling sentences together was quickly deteriorating and so it was time to step away from the mic.

Next year I hope to have D-STAR capabilities for SRD, and I hope that NWS advertises a reflector number on the website and lists NWS offices that will be using D-STAR for the event (like they do already for Echolink/IRLP). I also thought about setting up a live video stream like NWS Detroit K8DTX did — they seemed pretty popular and heard a few comments over the air about their stream.

Another member helpfully pointed out that despite the lack of Morse code testing, CW entries were actually on the rise. But for the life of me, I couldn’t find that thread or the statistics ever again through weeks and weeks of Googling with different keywords.

I e-mailed Sean Kutzko, KX9X, the ARRL Contest Branch Manager. About a day later, I got an e-mail back from him confirming that yes, there is an “upward trend” of CW contest entries in the last five years. Here’s the breakdown:

CW Sweepstakes entries have increased from 1,230 submitted logs in 2004
to 1,417 in 2008.

The ARRL DX CW Contest entries have risen from 2,567 in 2005 to 3,133 in
2009.

Field Day CW activity has gone from 503,205 CW QSOs in 2005 to 556,525
in 2009.

The sky isn’t falling, CW contesting is on the rise, and amateur radio ain’t dyin’. Today’s amateur radio operators are no less “real” than they were 50 years ago, whether they know code or not.