Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society

Field Day Afterglow

July 4, 2020

     Field Day 2020 was successful despite COVID-19. There may have been as many as 17 KB5A participants operating in isolation together. We won’t know the aggregate KB5A club score until later in the year.

     Contacts were made on 80m through 2m; 6m and 10m made several guest appearances; 15m and 20m were hopping; 40m and 80m varied between lots of clear RF and lots of RF noise.

     This was a different Field Day in many aspects. We were unable to operate at a group site but each of us experienced running our own little Field Day. Many of us learned how to use Winlink to send Radiograms. We each learned some things to improve future group Field Day operations. If you have ideas for next year, email them to me and I’ll add them to my massive Field Day planning file. I’ve already started a list for next year.

     Even though we didn’t meet together for Field Day, there are some people that worked behind the scenes to pull off our isolated Field Day. First, all the volunteers who blindly volunteered for the Club Field Day event not knowing what would happen relative to COVID-19: members who volunteered to gather up and provide items for the Club Field Day site operation even though they were planning to operate separately; Dave Lane, N5GDL, for sending out news flashes and newsletters; Mike Brown, W5MDB, for keeping the website up-to-date and doing all the Field Day publicity work; members of the Board who hashed through the Field Day plan and the COVID concerns, and eventually made the hard decision to have the club operate separately instead of together at a common venue; David Gilpin, K5GIL, and Allan Batteiger, WB5QNG, for figuring out and testing Club Score Processor—although we didn’t use it for Field Day, we now have a procedure for using it during future operating events; Kevin Grantham, N5KRG, for walking the Field Day site with me while we considered antenna potentials; all the club members who participated in Field Day from their home shacks and garages; and finally, if you haven’t already, thank your spouse or significant other for letting you play radio all weekend and for keeping you well fed.