Gents,

It’s getting time to make some plans for FD 2022, but maybe first we ought to figure out who is really interested in playing Field Day this year.? So who’ s in this year?

Once we figure out who’s in, maybe we can arrange a get-together of those folks to figure out what we want to do.

I was wondering how this might work out this year, with my daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters living here as well.? But first Margaret decided to go to South Africa in June to visit her mom, and with a small contribution from me my daughter and her family are planning a weekend away, so it will be a bit easier to have run of the house.? So we can set up whatever we want.

Last year we operated 3A, 100W max power, mostly wire antennas for HF and a yagi for 6m, all run off of batteries and solar panels.? Very quiet in the back yard.? Friday setup was just me and the spud gun shooting some lines over trees to put up wire antennas for 20, 15, and 10 and move wires for 80, 40.? Saturday we put up the 6m yagi and the phased verticals for 40.? We had one station on CW, and two stations on FT-4/8.? I don’t thing we made a single phone contact.? There were a total of five folks involved.? We each got to operate about as much as we wanted to, and if the radios sat unused for a bit, so what?? I thought it was fun as we could chat a bit while working digital, and the noise on the deck was pretty low for the CW folks.? We made a bit over 1000 Qs, and a bit over 5000 points.? Very nice balance between decent setup and level of effort to set things up.?

It worked pretty well, but we were losing the battle with the batteries towards the end.? But I’m sure we had additional batteries we could have had available (but didn’t think we needed), and I also have an EU2000 Honda generator we could use if we had to.? (Using the generator wouldn’t affect the score, as we can still only claim the x2 power multiplier because we are running 100W.? To get the x5 multiplier you are limited to 5W max.)?

With the recent rules change, ARRL has made permanent the practice of home stations (Class D) working other home stations for QSO credit.? I don’t like it, but it is what it is.? Maybe we could operate as class D and skip all the setup.? Or maybe do the setup outside FD weekend (a week early?) and operate class D or class E (home station on emergency power).? Just something to consider.?

So let me know who is interested this year, and if you are interested in part time, one day only, the full weekend, or whatever.? Share any thoughts you have via groups.io.?

Dave UW