WD9EWK - ARRL Field Day 2003

      



Updated 13 July 2004

I operated from the Fort Tuthill Park, south of downtown Flagstaff, Arizona, in grid DM45dd.  I was approximately 40 yards/40m south of my operating location in Field Day 2002, and about 15 yards/15m west of where I was for Field Day 2001.  The trees in the park make for excellent shade, and great places to secure a dipole.  There were 2 picnic tables in the spot I used, so I had some choices - plus I could drag the tables to a place where I could be in the shade for most of the afternoon. 

• Icom IC-703 HF transceiver, operating at 5 watts!
• LDG Electronics Z-11 QRP automatic antenna tuner, with RBA-1 balun
• Wire dipole for 40 meters, fed with 450-ohm twin-lead, suspended between two trees
• Garmin GPSMAP 76S GPS receiver (my "clock" for logging)
• Xantrex xPower 300 12V/21Ah gel-cell battery with 300-watt AC inverter (I have two of these, but only needed one for the radio and tuner this afternoon)
• RadioShack Portable Power Station 12V/7Ah gel-cell battery (I also have two of these, but only used one for my HT and cell-phone this afternoon)
• lots of spare wire, coax cable, 300-ohm and 450-ohm twinlead, and other tools

• Locating in a public location - the picnic area at Fort Tuthill Park
• Operating my station on 100% emergency power - everything ran either on those gel-cells or other battery packs

I did not copy the special ARRL Field Day bulletin, I no longer have those Alinco DJ-596 handheld transceivers with the digital-voice boards, and I didn't bring my portable amateur television (ATV) equipment - so I missed out on some bonuses.  I was primarly interested in getting on the air and using my relatively new IC-703 in a field setting.  I have had this radio for only 7 weeks, and this was the first time I used it outside my house. 

On 40m SSB, I had better luck.  This was the first time in my 3 Field Day trips where I operated on this band, and with my small station I was able to contact 16 stations in 5 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming) in the next 60 minutes.  After this time, when I did not hear any other stations that were not already in my log - or other stations that could hear me - I decided to try the 15m band again. 

This time, about 75 minutes after I first tried the 15m band, I had better propagation to work with.  I worked another 10 stations here (all in Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian province of British Columbia).  While I was on 15m, I had a visitor come by to look at my station and ask me what I was doing, so I was not using the radio as much.  I had my radio on the 15m band for almost 3 hours, but with 2 exceptions my 15m contacts were made within the first 45 minutes of that 3-hour period. 

Later on, at 0040 UTC (1740 local time), I decided to give the 40m band another try, thinking there would be more stations on here as it was later in the day than when I was first on this band.  I logged 7 more contacts in the next 40 minutes, with stations in California and Wyoming.  And finally, before the end of my Field Day activity, I went back to the band where I started to operate - 20m.  Only 4 more contacts here, with stations in California, Washington, and British Columbia.  With my final contact logged at 0144 UTC (1844 local time), I ended my Field Day operating for 2003. 

• 15 meters: 11
• 20 meters: 17
• 40 meters: 23

With the exception of one contact early in the afternoon with N5CRP in Texas, all of my contacts were with stations in the western USA and Canada.  Propagation was not on my side this year, as I had expected, so I compensated by trying the 40m band - which worked well for my small station.  The IC-703, in my opinion, easily outperformed my Yaesu FT-817 portable transceiver on HF.  I never used a narrow SSB filter with either radio, but the receiver in the IC-703 heard more - and I could deal with the times where there were stations crammed into a small space, using the IF shift knob and the IC-703's DSP module.  I could have probably made more QSOs had I used the IC-703 at 10 watts, but at the expense of having only a 2X power multiplier for my contacts - something I did not want to do this year.  This year was a test of the IC-703 compared to my FT-817 I used in the last 2 Field Days, and the IC-703 is a keeper! 

• Picture of my equipment, on a picnic table in the park
• Another picture of my equipment
• Looking away from my picnic table, toward my antenna (you may see some black 450-ohm twinlead coming up from the ground, near the middle of the picture)

I have been operating from a variety of locations away from home in the last 2.5 years, since purchasing my FT-817, and have accumulated a wealth of knowledge related to putting a less-than-ideal HF station on the air.  I had wanted to work 100 stations this year, but reached just over half way to that target (still more contacts than in 2001 or 2002).  Oh well.... I know I could have come close, had I not entertained a visitor for part of the afternoon - and if I was truly motivated to work this day "contest-style".  Field Day is not officially a "contest", but it is fun to see how one can operate against other stations all over the USA and Canada, as well as others throughout the Americas. 

73!