Field Day 2012 timelapses from the East Bay Amateur Radio Club and University of California, Berkeley’s W6BB Amateur Radio Club held at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley (adjacent to the Marina). These were shot over a 24-hour period from June 23rd, through June 24th, 2012.

We ran 3A, which means we had three main transmitters on the air at any given time, plus we ran the ‘Get On The Air’ (GOTA) station under the auspices of the W6BB club with Mathison, KJ6DZB mentoring. Our site had a Digital (PSK) station, a Phone station (SSB), and a Morse Code (CW) station.

Conditions were fine. Our main issue was having enough overnight operators, and our signals getting into one another’s. Results are still being (procrastinated by me) tallied. Will try and update with that info when it becomes available.

The entirety of this video was shot on a modified GoPro Hero 2 HD purchased at http://ragecams.com/ (I used the 4mm lens).
73 and stay tuned!

Jack, K6JEB
http://www.k6jeb.com/

This music is from the underappreciated Incredible Bongo Band – ‘Apache’.
http://www.youtube.com/artist/Incredible_Bongo_Band

CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: K6JEB
Operator(s): K6JEB
Station: K6JEB

Class: SO(A)AB HP (Single Operator (Assisted) All-Band High Power)
QTH: California
Operating Time (hrs): 16:27

Summary:
Band QSOs
————
160: 2
80: 35
40: 73
20: 43
15: 101
10: 22
————
Total: 276 Prefixes = 196 Total Score = 130,732

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Here’s a short video clip of the contest.  Pardon the poor resolution but the audio is fairly clear:

Comments:

Finally a contest where 160-10 were quite usable at some part of the day!  Although I didn’t take part in this contest full-time, I still had fun doing Search and Pounce.  My only goal was to get at least 100 QSOs.

My equipment for this contest:

rig: Yaesu FT-857D
amplifier: Dentron GLA-1000
antennas: Cushcraft A3S, Butternut HF9V, Inverted L for 160m

Conditions were better on Saturday than Sunday, at least for me.  I did try calling CQ on one frequency for a while and that simply didn’t produce any QSOs.

This contest is fun since there are so many multipliers.  It occurred to me that new hams can benefit from their call sign prefixes as well.  Now I’m looking forward to the CW weekend.  Hopefully I can clear the schedule to dedicate the weekend to it.

73

Jack, K6JEB

Call: K6JEB
Operator(s): K6JEB
Station: K6JEB

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: East Bay
Operating Time (hrs): 23:08

Summary:
Band QSOs
————
160: 0
80: 155
40: 99
20: 71
15: 40
10: 0
————
Total: 365 Sections = 70 Total Score = 51,100

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

The bands were reflective of the season: mashed potatoes and gravy all of
Saturday. Thanks for the spots! That makes a huge difference when you’re a
little gun.

Used my Yaesu FT-857D and Dentron GLA-1000 (500watts max) into an Inverted-L for 160m (about 35 feet high) and a ground-mounted Butternut HF9V along with Writelog. I did fire-up my Yaesu FT-840 early-on to try my hand at some Search and Pounce on other bands but since I didn’t have the CAT cable connected, I had to log each QSO manually, and so it became easier to just go to that band (barefoot) on the FT-857.

Because I lent my amp cable to a fellow EBARC member, I could only control the PTT on my amp with a foot switch, instead of automatically from the rig and computer. In other words, if you heard me at all this past week on the bands, that was actually me, not a recording (though I was able to call CQ from the computer barefoot, but that was not very productive). So a big note for next year: make sure you have all your cables and computer stuff set up weeks before to ensure the suffering is not repeated at this level.

My eyes and body and especially my legs were just tired and exhausted. I’ve been on party benders that have left me more lucid than I felt after this contest hi hi!

73 and KB
Jack, K6JEB