lessons learned from field day, June 2015 ----------------------------------------- - despite doing ok, we did NOT start out well-organized. The head of field day was in otter creek, and I don't think we had ANY "coordinator" for lookout park. Next time we do split-site, we need a coorrdinator for BOTH sites. specific issues, mainly due to lack of coordination --------------------------------------------------- - the club radio (FT-897) was "supposed to be used at field day", but no one was appointed to actually BRING it, so it never made it. There were lots of "wasn't SoAndSo going to bring that?" Everyone assumed someone else was going to do it. - we had a surplus of batteries, and in the end were using most of them. I for one had a battery that didn't hold under load. I would say for the purpose of power, everyone that has a battery ought to bring one. USE POWER POLES PLEASE. We had some power hookups that had to be twisted and alligator-clipped. - paddles and keys seem to have a standards problem. Some plugs are 1/4", some are 1/8", and some radios have recessed jacks that won't admit wide-bodied plugs or adapters. This needs to be sorted out BEFORE the equipment meets for the first time at the shelter. I ended up going home and whipping up some adapters. By the time I got back, they'd improvised with alligator clips and wire cutters. - Same goes for mics. It would be nice to have adapters to allow interoperation of mics. I had a decent kenwood desk mic with me with a kenwood to yeasu adapter on it, but it would not connect to Dave's Icom, which had to run all day with a hand mic. - we had radios and we had antennas, but tuners were mostly forgotten about. Fortunately I brought one of mine. I think part of the problem here is one person would bring an antenna and another person would bring a radio, and both assumed the other would be bringing a tuner. - logging software got off to a rocky start. No one knew how to use it, and the only experienced user did not attend. Fortunately we had plenty of pen and paper to fall back on initially. We did get the use figured out by midday. The airport express (which works off 110vac) worked well to create an ad-hoc network, though there's no intication the logging software ever networked the two laptops together. we had three stations and only two computers, so Jerome was logging by pen all day. - both of the cw stations brought headphones, but the 6p was operating with the built-in speaker. the 15c on the ft-897 had dual headphones for the logger and the operator, which was a really good idea. I ended up using an ext speaker I brough on the 6p, which greatly improved readability. If you're binging a radio, amke sure you have something better than just the little internal speaker. - only one 20-to-12v regulator was available. we need to find more of those and get more dual battery setups. I also notice a lack of low-battery alarms. This is a particular problem when using two in series to a regulator, to prevent deep discharge or reverse charge when running 24 hrs. - NO ONE brought a cooler with ice in it. A few of us brought our own small personal coolers, and I brought a water cell, but we had nothing in the way of publicly available cold refreshments. This should be something the club provides, maybe drop $25 on ice and cases of canned pop, using someone's cooler? - although we had some banners up at the shelter, we had nothing in the way of signage at Park and Rainbow. I think that would be a really good idea next time. AFAIK we didn't get any press presence as we have had a few times in the past. - at no point did anyone have anything resembling a ground rod - I initially set up a talk-in radio on 2m, but my 897 had to be repurposed as the 15c. This radio should be factored into planning next time. The shelter should be reachable via the local repeater during the entire event. - RF adapters, watt-meters, and SWR bridges were adequate but there was NO redundancy. People that brought antennas and radios were relying on someone else to produce the necessary adapters and meters when they arrived. We got a bit lucky today I think. One of the HF antennas had a BNC on it, with no adapter provided...? - We had very little available in the way of electronics repair or tools. I didn't see a single soldering iron. Fortunately nothing required fixing, which is somewhat unusual. The key jurry-rigging was done with alligator clips. problems avoided by not running 24 hrs or into the evening, that would have bitten us otherwise --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - both computers relied on battery power the entire day, and were getting low by the time we left. They were also reliant on 120vac to charge. I brought numerous inverters, but I think I was the only one that thought to bring them? Had we stayed longer, and I not brought them, we would have had a problem. There weren't enough batteries to go around to keep radios AND inverters powered. None of my inverters are noise-tested. The only inverter in use today was a little unit for the airport express, and it doesn't appear to have been a problem. - I brought an LED ring lamp, but it ran off 110. It was the ONLY non-alkaline-battery LED light I own, and it would have been our only good light source after dark. Efficient 12v lighting is something we need to get more of. I could imagine flashlights with alkaline batteries getting used in desperation. It's definitely on my list of things to build or buy. some things went better than usual ---------------------------------- - we basically had a station at each of the four corners of the shelter, with antennas in all four directions. this seems to have completely eliminated station-to-station interferance. I don't think anyone was using any of the filters Stan made recently. - our test of running split site (otter creek and lookout park) was met initially with a lot of uncertainty, but in the end it worked out fine (for us at lookout anyway) We were 3A with three stations in use almost continuously the entire day, on 6p, 15c, and 40c. We also had a few visitors. There wasn't a whole lot of mic swapping going on though, and we were only operating from 1-5. Many were setting up around 10:30, and broke camp almost immediately at 5pm. I believe this is the best participation we've seen recently? I personally would have liked to have operated into the evening. - Stan's 6m beam seemed to be working well, but unfortunately 6 was pretty dead.