I made my way up to Opp, AL on Saturday Night (Sat June 27th) to join in with the South Alabama Radio Club (http://www.wc4m.net/). I planned on operating all night on either 40 or 80m. Once I arrived Bob W5RE got me all setup at the radio and gave me a quick class on its functions, keyer memories etc. I also made a cheat sheat that showed our exchange. WC4M 3A AL. From there it was on. I worked up and down 40m from 2300 CST till 0345 and 0545 to 0730 on Sunday morning. I had a long day before I got up there. Reba and I had gone to a murder mystery dinner. It was great but I would not include it in Field Day prep again!
There were plenty of contacts to be made and I had little trouble working the stations I heard. I operated from 7.026 and up as I only have a General class license. It was wall to wall CW! Having good filters in your rig is a big plus. The filter I was using was 500hz and it was not tight enough to handle all of the people making contacts. As the night wore on I had more trouble getting the exchanges. I noticed that I was not the only one on the band that was having the same troubles. I was tired! I felt like I was copying CW drunk. That's when I knew it was time to crawl in the truck and get some sleep.
Once I woke up I got a drink of water and jumped back on. By 0730 I was done and needed to wrap it up. I needed to get home and also wanted to stop by my home club NOARC (www.w4aaz.org) and visit with the guys. I had a quick bite to eat and snapped a couple of pictures before I went. In total I made 83 contacts. My contact rate was not as good as It should have been, but I was nearly out of gas before I even started. Oh well, maybe next year.
After leaving Opp I made my way back to the NOARC club. I enjoyed the ride back because there were not many people on the road and it was a nice morning. I also took the time to listen to my new AC/DC album, Black Ice. I'm just a little bit of a fan of AC/DC!!!
I arrived at the Dorcas Fire Station ready to visit with people, but Bob N4CU escorted me straight to the radio. I jumped on 20m CW and made 35 contacts in an hour. While I didn't spend a lot of time operating, it was great. Everyone was in good spirits and enjoying themselves. Here is a link to the photos of the clubs pictures of Field Day 2009. http://www.w4aaz.org/main/page_photo_album.html
In summary Field Day went really well this year. I had a great time, got to visit with good people and eat some awesome food. I'm looking forward to next year wherever I end up going.
Steve
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