Field Day 2011 Results

I would like to report that after some fits and starts regarding Field Day, at the last minute, myself working with David McGough, President of the Wilmington VHF Association and Stephen Russ, New Hanover County Emergency Coordinator, a 2A classification effort was organized and supported by various members of all three groups.

It seemed rather appropriate since Field Day is a form of an emergency exercise for the ham population and the NHC call of NC4NH was used. This may have been a first for the county. In excess of 30 ham radio operators either participated directly in the event or came by as visitors. If you listened on the various repeaters after FD there were plenty of very positive comments heard.

We setup at Ogden Park much like ACARC has in the past. All-in-all it makes a good location and we continue to learn about good features such as 80’ light poles that were used to advantage thanks to NI4SR’s rifle-shot air cannon. Of course with the hasty planning and the coordination of a whole new group of individuals everything did not go perfectly – but then that is what emergency practice is all about, learning your needs for improvement and working on them in the future. The general consensus was that we should try this again next year and get the planning started earlier.

Breakdown for contacts by mode and band were as follows:

SSB 80M 27; 40M 115; 20M 96; 15M 36; 6M 33

CW 80M 24; 40M 91; 20M 122; 15M 58

A total of 295CW and 287SSB for a grand total of 532. The GOTA station had 7 contacts we are sure of in the logs but some others got messed up because of incorrect logging procedures so the exact total is unclear at this writing. Logging particularly with multiple stations and on SSB needs some work. As I mentioned earlier, everyone that participated really had a lot of fun. It was great that New Hanover County was able to put forth a good effort in the most popular US ham radio event of the year – each year. It would be nice to see many more local hams get involved in the planning and operations next year.