FIELD DAY 1994

Teara's Field Day at Carolina Pottery

Smithfield, NC

1994 was the 3rd year that TEARA held Field Day operations at Carolina Pottery in Smithfield, NC. This site is a good location for public exposure, and the owners of the mall allow us to use the structures on the property as well (light poles, etc.).

As you can see, the 2 existing light poles on the property make great supports for our 30 and 40 foot tall towers. Along with supporting the 10 meter vertical and VHF/UHF antenna arrays, the towers were also used to support a 40 meter dipole between them, a 160/20 meter combo dipole between one tower and a distant tree, a G5RV from one tower to a nearby lightpole, and a 75 meter dipole from one tower and a local street light. A fine antenna farm, indeed!

This is a much better shot of the VHF/UHF antenna array. The tower was assembeled on the spot from random pieces of Rohn 25, and hoisted up by a bunch of people and rope...the old "Arm-Strong" method. All of the antennas were the private system of N8RQR and family, and all manufactured by M-Squared...excellant antennas, I might add. From the bottom up, 6 meters SSB, 220 SSB, 2 meters SSB, and 432 SSB. The rotor was a Ham-M, and had to receive a little "mouth-to-mouth" during the installation process. Andy KR4WY took care of the rotor repairs and all was well.

We actually assembled all of the Yagi's on the vertical mast prior to lifting it up to the top of the tower...I was perched on the top for installation with the tower wobbling about (it was tied to the light pole with a length of rope!). Beautiful system, don't you think?

Meanwhile, under the tent, the gang was hard at work connecting rigs, wiring power distribution, testing cables, etc. The logging was performed on a custom program written by Chris KC4YLE on three networked computers, sharing a common database. OOOPS!...the packet station let the magic smoke out for some reason. Once again, yet another item was repaired by Andy on the spot and the packet station was up and running. Generators, power distribution, back-up batteries, etc. were installed to keep all the gear running throughout the night and into the next day. Finally, all was wired, tested, adjusted, and ready to go on the air at 2 O'clock PM Saturday.

Field Day is always a fun event with TEARA, and this was no exception. Here in the forefront of the picture, KB4ZMB and KR4TP are hard at the contesting. We had several shifts of operators during the 24 hour event, some came by to work, while some stayed the duration. A few others are visible in the background operating on the HF stations.

Propogation was pretty good, and 6 meters even opened up for a bunch of contacts into the midwest. Our final score was in the upper 1/3 of the U.S. in our catagory, but the "fun-o-meter" was right up there at the top. Check with the local ham radio clubs in your area for their field day site location/date and plan to participate. It's an experience you'll never forget!