Another SLQS Field Day is a wrap — and in my opinion, it was once again a great event. Everything from the pre-planning, the antenna “dry runs,” setup, operation, the food, the weather, and the wrap-up… it was great!

We were active on 6, 10, 15, 20, 40, and 80 meters at various times throughout the event. Saturday conditions were lackluster on the higher bands; 15 in particular was awfully quiet. But Sunday morning was another story; we worked quite a few stations on 10m after the sun came up.

This year we tried something new for a 20m antenna — a 2-element single-mast wire beam that Larry N0SA had found. It had a pretty big footprint, but it worked well. It was neat to turn the control switch and hear stations get stronger.

Due to the antenna’s size, we’d located the operating position tent away from the main gazebo. A nice side-effect of this was that the ops at this position were more comfortable using speakers rather than headphones, which in turn let visitors and guests listen in. We had groups of guys operating, dupe checking and logging, and watching the action. I think this could become a regular feature of our FD setup.

Once again we had a lot of fun, enjoyed great weather, we tried some new things, and we turned in a respectable score. Heck, we beat last year’s score!

QSOs + 1,150 bonus points claimed

Take a look at the photos we captured of the event. Next year please plan to join us!

Well, perhaps I was a little harsh on the band conditions in my previous post. I was recalling the dearth of signals on 10M and 15M at the outset. Fair to say that things were better by Sunday morning, so I suppose I was a bit hasty in my assessment of the solar conditions. (But not the weather! I stand by my claim!)

Dave Gauding, NF0R, wrote a nice summary of this year’s FD:

Field Day 2015 has come and gone and it was a good one. The backyard of KY0U turned out to be very kind to RF. The trees, flower beds and deck were well-suited for our antennas. John Lonigro was called out of semi-retirement to orchestrate the event and ably assisted by Tom Brown. Additional attendees included Jeff (and Sara) Logullo, Lou Axeman, Rod Koch, Hillard (and Bonnie) Goldman, Bob Pritchard and Dave Gauding. Bonnie was truly a great hostess and tolerant of a bunch of hairy-legged boys tramping in and out of her gorgeous home! HI Thank you once again Bonnie! The club used a 40M dipole, G5RV, R5 vertical, 6M dipole and a micro loop. There were several K2’s, a KX3 and an single FT-817 underfoot. We submitted a score of 5355 points on CW and SSB in 4A Battery including bonus points. John Lonigro has already mentioned two items of interest for anyone not attending this year. First, club station AA0VE did pretty well for what started out as a laid-back non-competitive operation. And, not one neighbor complained about after-hours noise and lights. Therefore, in the the absence of a responding Kirkwood police officer we were unable to qualify for extra points by inviting a public official on-site! HI

Rod and Lou were the iron men on CW once again and responsible for about 400 of the 464 total QSO’s on 10M, 15M, 20M, 40M and 80M. Way to go OM’s! Our ops also recorded 19 SSB contacts. The bonus points were taken for emergency power, alternate power (solar), W1AW bulletin (copied by Tom Collinvitti) and our web submission.

The club gave our traditional pork steak menu the year off and replaced it with excellent take-out fried chicken with all the trimmings as well as a few treats from Bonnie. We could not have asked for better weather and many mature trees in the yard provided plenty of shade. Nature in its various forms certainly made up for those years where we have been baked, nearly drowned or blew away. Needless to say a good time was had by all. If you were not there you were missed but I believe everyone knows that already. So we hope to see you next year! Plans are already underway to nail down our operating site early on.

The photos taken by John AA0VE and Bob K0FHG are now in the photo gallery.