Field day 2008 is now history. It went fairly well. There was only about ten drops of rain that actually fell while I was operating.
Saturday morning I set up the tent and strung the G5RV. Almost did not think it would fit between the selected trees, but it did with maybe 20 feet to spare. I purchased a small 4 foot portable table that had adjustable height. I worked perfectly with a standard lawn chair. I did charge the deep cycle cell Saturday morning for maybe a half hour. It did not really need it though. The lights mentioned in the previous post were hung and one would have thought I had a 40 watt florescent bulb they were so bright. The keyer and tuner were hooked up. I ran three counterpoise lines. Next year I will take more time to check the lengths, but one each ran west, north and east. Then I realized that FD did not start at noon central, but rather one so I had an hour to wait!
I always forget just how fast the CW stations go. I did manage to get enough from 5 contacts to count them. After that I was glad I had a microphone. I worked 46 SSB contacts on 80, 40 and 20 meters and 36 sections including Hawaii. I did hear an Alaska station with a signal strength of S7, but did not work him.
The G5RV was wide banded on 20 and was nice not to have to continually tune up.The orientation favored the southwest and northeast. Next year I would like to have a little more signal going to the northwest. Next year I think I will add one for 40. If the band conditions are finally getting good by then I will definitely enjoy working 15 meters.
Also, I had a nice night of restful sleep. There are three pictures of the set up at http://www.ke4ke.org/
Tim
