FIELD DAY 2004

Teara's 2004 Field Day Exercise

Our 2nd FD Operation at the Wendell City Park

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To the right, you'll see the site for the 2004 TEARA Field Day activities. It was held in the beautiful settings of the Wendell Public Park.

We had 12 operators and the opportunity to demonstrate amateur radio for several new folks from the community. We even had the Wendell Chief of Police's son on the air for his first contacts.

The wx was good for the most part, though we were unable to start setting up on Saturday morning due to rain that was moving out in the early morning. A COLD wind blew through during the night on Saturday, and made "bundling up" a necessity. We operated 80m through 10m Phone/CW, as well as packet radio on SEDAN and APRS.

The primary station operated under the club call sign of WA4UQC. We used dipole antennas for HF operations, launched up into the trees in the park by AC4UD and his fishing rod. The VHF operations were via a mobile mag-mount antenna stuck to a cooking grate from a charcoal grill, and a 2m coaxial dipole that was built 'on site'. The primary operations were powered by 4 deep cycle batteries, that ran us for the entire event without maintenance/charging!

The GOTA station operated under the CSC callsign 'W4EOT', as in W4 Emergency Operations Trailer....pretty neat!. The GOTA trailer is self-contained, so it went on the air quickly. It was powered by a 5kw portable generator, and was very 'miserly' with fuel useage. This is a heck of a portable communications station, built by Ronnie WA4MJF, Sherry KB4EXL, and CSC.

We all had a great time, and much was learned for next year's activities. It was a short weekend, and time seemed to pass quickly. As usual, we all had some good laughs, and began to discuss how we could do a better job with emergency communications. Check out the pics below of our Field Day 2004 Adventures...

Here are more pictures from our 2004 Field Day. Simply click 'BACK' in your toolbar to return to this page and view more pics!

• An AWESOME Field Day Location!
  
• The TEARA Field Day Banner.
  
• Here's our Feedline termination being performed by Holt AC4UD and Jimmy K4CMH.
  
• Here's our 80m dipole and it's supporting ropes at the apex.
  
• Here's our Antenna Fishin'...Holt demonstrates the finer points of dipole launching.
  
• Here's our Yet more Dipoles being pulled into place.
  
• Here is the 40m Station
  
• Here's the 20/80m HF Station
  
• The APRS Packet Station, and the 2m Talk-in Rig...
  
• Here's the POWER SOURCE for our primary operations at WA4UQC. It's 4 deep cycle batteries that ran us for the entire event!
  
• Here's our Operations underway on Saturday evening.
  
• Lynwood AF4XJ working 20m Phone...
  
• Norm KA4PUV at work on 40 meters.
  
• The GOTA Trailer...
  
• ...Ronnie WA4MJF making contacts on the GOTA Station, W4EOT.
  
• Here's our Sherry KB4EXL at the controls in the GOTA trailer.
  
• Here's a pic of the 5kw Generator.
  

You can also check out TEARA's 2004 Field Day pics and info online at the ARRL's site in the Contest Soapbox section. You'll also be able to view loads of neat pictures from other club stations who participated in the 2004 ARRL Field Day activities.