
Over the 21 years that I've been a ham, one of my favourite activities has always been
Field Day. Nothing seems to speak to the spirit of amateur radio better than a group of hams cooperating together to set up temporary stations in simulated emergency conditions. Then spend 24 hours with friends doing a little operating, a little socializing and enjoying some fine
Field Day cuisine. Years back, I was the Field Day Manager for a club I was involved with and thoroughly enjoyed seeing things come together. In recent years my level of involvement has been limited by family and sometimes work concerns. This year,
Murphy's Law again kicked in as an out-of-town family gathering meant I wasn't able to take part except for a few hours on the Saturday evening. None-the-less it was a blast and I'm doing my best to keep the
calendar clear for next year.

In the past, the Field Day sites have been in various locations including a cabin at a conservation area, an old school house and last year in very comfortable digs at the administration building for the local
conservation authority. This year the guys thought...hey, let's have "Field Day" in an actual field...what a concept! The land is owned by Eric VA3
EP and located in a quiet spot of
Prince Edward County near
Picton, Ontario.

Brian VA3
BRW was manning the digital
station, primarily on
RTTY. He was comfy in his modern and cosy camper trailer.

A bit of a fuzzy shot, but a close up of the neatly arranged digital operating station.

The 40-80 position was in a tent. Mike
VE3OX owns the nice
Vibroplex and was planning on running CW through the night. He was taking a break after a swarm of
mosquitos invaded the tent.

The 20-15-10 station was located in a trailer previously used to transport racing motorcycles.

Inside the 20m trailer. Al
VE3
FZ on the mic with Bob VA3ACE logging.

All the essentials for Field Day operating...a computer for logging, HF Rig (
Kenwood TS-2000 in this case) and an electronic mosquito zapper....oh and a bowl for the cherry pits.

The youngest operator at Field Day was Alex VA3
UGT. He made a few contacts on 6m
SSB with Eric looking on and
Elmering.

The V/UHF station was housed in an old camper that Eric bought from a junk yard. It's now a nice little shack on wheels! Every ham needs one of these. The antennas included a square-shaped
omni-directional 6-meter antenna, a small
yagi for 2m and an
omni vertical for 2 & 440. Looks there was also a dipole or
windom for HF.

Yours truly on 6 meters, with Lee VA3
LHM doing some manual logging. We had a good little run going for awhile as
the band opened up nice towards the American west coast. Earlier in the day,
Puerto Rico was worked on 6.

Eric had a pretty elaborate power supply system worked out for this station. If the generator quit, there would be no
interruption of power.

The VHF station itself consisted of a
Yaesu FT-857 for 6 & 2 meters
SSB, while an FT-90 was standing by for any 2m FM activity.
The tri-bander raduating radio magic into the night.
That's Bob VA3ACE in the trailer with Al VE3FZ.
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