Field Day 2021
June 26 - 27 , 2021
Prologue:
The largest event sponsored by the Amateur Radio Relay League is the annual Field Day event. 
Last year, the world faced a global pandemic caused by the Chinese Coronavirus (COVID-19). Most amateur radio events and gatherings were canceled including our own Ides of March Hamfest. Monthly club meetings were relegated to online virtual meetings that were lightly attended. We all persevered through the bad times, a vaccine was made available in record time, and slowly we began to recover.
Last year's Field Day event was unique in that the rules were modified to allow home stations (designated either 1D or 1E) to gain QSO credit for contacting other home stations. 
This was never allowed before and was in response to that particular pandemic environment. In addition, those home stations were allowed to submit their scores as an affiliated club station and those scores would be added to the overall club score. This resulted in astounding scores ! But no one quite knew what to make of them. We were delighted to learn that we had finished 20th nationally in class 2A and first in the state of Tennessee !
This year, the "powers that be" at ARRL decided that we would keep the modified Field Day rules in regards to home stations except they were limited to 150 watts maximum power. It seems there were too many home amplifiers in play last year ! As this year's calendar rolled around, we didn't know what impact all this would be on actual operator turnout. We decided again to run in the very competitive 2A classification. The head count of proposed operators did not look much different than last year's head count. We also took a tremendous loss with the passing of Bob Miles K9IL (SK) earlier in the year.
As the first quarter of 2021 completed, it seemed that recovery from the pandemic was at hand. This best guess led us to renew the Get On The Air (GOTA) station. Stephen KK4NNH was asked once again to head this station up and he allowed the use of his very nice Kenwood TS-590. However, a late decision by his employer would not allow him to participate in Field Day this year. This was disappointing to us all, to say the least, but we made the best of it.
Without Bob K9IL (SK) at his key, we knew we were going to have to make up the points somewhere. Our declared 1D stations were Phil N4PWG and Harrell WD4LAR. We knew that the digital mode FT8 was the most popular mode on the ham bands and, as it turned out, it was easy to make contacts and easy to teach to new hams and prospective hams !
Setup:
Prior to the official Field Day setup, Jamie WB4YDL was hard at work preparing the VHF station for satellite communications. For the past couple of Field Day's, our group has been unable to make a satellite QSO for that 100 point bonus. Most of the FM satellites were not in good shape and the ISS cross-band repeater was going to be more than busy. So it was decided to attempt a QSO on one of the several SSB/CW linear transponder 'birds'. Jamie had not done this in several years, so there was some study and 'boning up' to be done before the attempt was made. This was made easier with some newer technology - the SDR receiver !
Glenn N4MJ again provided the perfect venue for Field Day at his shop. On the Thursday evening prior to the event, we gathered to assemble each station. Of note was the GOTA station - it did not come with a computer !! Jamie WB4YDL had an extra laptop computer that had not been turned on in over 3 years ! It ran Windows 7 and required many updates and installation of the Field Day logging software, as well as the WSJT-X digital mode software. After a few hours with this, it was ready to connect to the Kenwood TS-590 transceiver.
For class 2A, the two transceivers consisted of Jamie WB4YDL's Elecraft K3S with P3 panadapter as the "mostly digital" station, and Michael AK4VU's very nice Kenwood TS-480HX transceiver as the "mostly everything" station. Each radio had digital interfaces and the option for CW operation with a Winkeyer. As it turned out, both stations were "mostly digital" !! Each of these two stations had laptop computers interfaced running networked N3FJP Field Day logging software as well as up-to-date WSJT-X and flDigi software.
The VHF station is a "free" station (that doesn't elevate our classification) and is therefore not networked. This station is responsible for a LOT of points gathered with Winlink radio email traffic and messages to the section manager and section emergency coordinator.
Also, 6M is usually a fun band when it's open. This station also holds the possibility of obtaining a hard 100 points with a satellite QSO. It is this QSO that turned out to be most fascinating ! As mentioned, the Yaesu FT-847 was configured as the simplex transmitter and an Airspy HF+ Discovery SDR the simplex receiver. Most linear transponder satellites operate to receive on the 70 cm. band, and transmit on the 2M band. SatPC32 control software as well as SDR Console was configured to control these two simultaneously to follow Doppler changes in frequency as the satellite passed overhead. The antennas (simple Arrow yagis for 2M and 70 cm) were mounted on a PVC crossboom using a Yaesu G-5500 alt-az rotator system.
The following afternoon, we met to raise the antennas we would use. For HF, this consisted of an inverted-L antenna for the "mostly digital" station and an offset-center dipole (OCD) for the "mostly everything" station. We also had a longer version of the OCD that would normally be our "Wildcard" antenna. These antennas are very simple antennas and took little time to deploy, particularly in the nice sunny weather. The GOTA antenna would be the small Mosley triband yagi on a push-up mast and the 6M antenna would also be a small yagi on the same mast. 2M activity would borrow the satellite Arrow yagi for such things as Winlink traffic.
The Operation:
Saturday morning saw beautiful weather - not too hot and not too humid ! 
A VE test session is traditionally offered prior to kickoff of operations and we had one tester - Patrick Hall KO4HEX. Patrick is, of course, Jamie WB4YDL's #1 son and was a candidate to take the Extra Class exam. The trouble was is that we needed 3 VE testers that were Extra Class that were not immediately related to Patrick ! Randle KN4OPZ was gracious enough to lend assistance and that gave us three VE's along with Harold KJ4FTM and Glenn N4MJ. Patrick took the exam and aced it !! Congratulations !!
Successful Candidates Testing at the VE Session :
- Patrick Hall KO4HEX : passed Extra Class
After completing the VE test session, we had some time before the start of operations. Jamie WB4YDL gave an educational presentation on the proper way to install Anderson PowerPole connectors. He brought a proper crimper which makes all the difference in the world and a bag of different connectors and some power zip wire. After demonstrating how it should be done, people were invited to try it for themselves. One of the successful power cables was later used for our natural power bonus points. In fact Glenn N4MJ brought over his Yaesu FT-817 QRP radio and it was configured for solar power. It turns out that these CW contacts were the only ones made by the club for this Field Day.
At 1 PM local time, the bands exploded in signals and the game was on ! Glenn got to work on the solar power CW QSO's and made them easily. Right out of the gate however, Mr. Murphy paid us a visit. We had one radio that couldn't receive (decode) FT8 signals and one radio that couldn't transmit when asked by the software !! It was quickly determined that the laptop interfaced to the Elecraft K3S had a time sync problem and couldn't decode the FT8 digital signals that relied on accurate time. Patrick KO4HEX was able to configure his cell phone as a hotspot and the laptop was quickly synced and received signals were once again being displayed. Harold KJ4FTM was able to get to work on 40M FT8.
The GOTA station consisted of a borrowed transceiver and an old Windows 7 laptop. An installed driver allowed the radio to generate a com port and audio CODEC. But there was something just not working - PTT would engage but no audio was being sent. So in the face of all this, Jamie WB4YDL simply turned the radio off, rebooted the computer and replaced the USB cable ! Everything came to life after that and no further problems were encountered.
Michael AK4VU had a different type of time problem, but it didn't make itself known for some time.
As it turns out, WSJT-X relies on accurate time syncing, but only in terms of a particular minute of an hour - but which hour ?? Michael's time was off exactly 1 hour but the software worked and signals were received and logged. But he was exactly 1 hour fast and if it continued to the end, it would mean he would finish an hour before everyone else ! Yikes !! So in the wee hours of the morning, Jamie WB4YDL helped Michael get correctly synced. This left a little work to be done after the event to make the times correct, but this was not a big deal.
Band conditions were remarkably good and signals were strong into 10 meters. In deference to the GOTA station, 20 meters was avoided by the other HF stations to lessen interstation interference. Even 6 meters was making several digital contacts and this continued throughout the event. Jamie WB4YDL finally was able to get some seat time at Michael AK4VU's station and decided to try 40M phone. This was a tough slog but 20 QSO's were made in all the QRM and QRN. A few phone QSO's were made on 6 meters and this was the extent of phone QSO's. ALL the rest of the contacts made were exclusively FT8 ! Wow !
Lots of bonus points were made ! Phil N4PWG represented our appointed official and also copied the W1AW Field Day bulletin. Our newest young member Ben Braddock KO4MAO made a fantastic poster for our information table - good for 100 points. Obion County Commissioner Ralph Puckett visited and that was good for another 100 points ! 
A Field Day greetings message was originated to the SM and SEC and 10 messages were serviced via 2 meter Winlink -all good for another 200 points. Noel KJ4UNX oversaw the PSA announcement for Field Day at the KYTN broadcast station. Noel also served as our safety officer and handled the social media announcement. And if that wasn't enough, Noel was our Super Chef and knocked some awesome hamburgers and 'dogs !
What was most impressive for the club this year was the youth involvement. We had no less than 10 kids less than 18 years old attend and 7 of them actually made contacts ! This easily achieved the youth bonus and Ben KO4MAO helped to mentor these young attendees. Needless to say the newly reactivated GOTA station was very active and really provided a boost to the overall club score.
Besides Jamie WB4YDL, Michael AK4VU, and Glenn N4MJ, we had Harold KJ4FTM, Michael Snow N4EBA, Patrick KO4HEX, Ben KO4MAO, Phil N4PWG and Noel KJ4UNX as our on-site operators. We had a total of 17 visitors to our operations site.
The most fascinating QSO of the day had to be the satellite QSO. Jamie WB4YDL was able to configure the VHF station so that the 2M downlink signals could be SEEN on a panadapter. This was a huge advantage as you were not reliant on just hearing signals on the radio speaker. The AO-73 satellite was moving in from the south on its polar orbit and the prediction was that it would be at a maximum elevation of 26 degrees in the north-northeast. As the 'bird' approached, the antennas automatically rotated into position and suddenly signals started to be seen over the entire passband. In order to sync up the received signal with the transmitted signal on 70 cm., a CW signal was sent and this was easily seen on the receive panadapter. 
The transmit signal was adjusted to center this signal and then it was a matter of finding a QSO partner. A station in eastern NY was found calling CQ FD and he was called; he immediately came back to us and the QSO was logged !! It was that fast ! 100 points finally for the satellite QSO !
The food provided for our motley crew was as usual amazing ! Noel provided grilled burgers 'n' dogs, Ms. Linda, Glenn N4MJ's XYL provided the chicken salad for the setup meeting and Ms. June, Jamie WB4YDL's XYL provided sub sandwiches and other munchies. Harold KJ4FTM again showed off his bakery talent as he made one of the best chocolate cakes EVER !! All was much appreciated as none of us went home hungry !
In the waning hours of the Field Day event, it was amazing as 6 meters really opened up ! Overall, an astounding 62 QSO's were made on the Magic Band ! Finally, at 1 PM Sunday, the operations ceased and another Field Day was in the books !
The Results:
So with 9 on-site operators and a revitalized GOTA station, how did this all turn out ? The following are the bottom line results :
Score Summary:
| CW | Digital | Phone |
Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total QSO's | 9 |
775 |
24 |
808 |
Band / Mode QSO Breakdown:
| CW | Digital | Phone | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80M | 0 |
216 |
0 |
216 |
| 40M | 9 |
145 |
14 |
168 |
| 20M | 0 |
0 |
6 |
6 |
| 15M | 0 |
90 |
0 |
90 |
| 10M | 0 |
101 |
0 |
101 |
| 6M | 0 |
59 |
3 |
62 |
| SAT | 0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| GOTA | 0 |
164 |
0 |
164 |
| TOTAL | 9 |
775 |
24 |
808 |
The bonus point total this year was 1830 points which quite an improvement thanks to the youth involvement and the GOTA station contribution. We made up about 500 points from last year thanks to the renewal of the GOTA station and the satellite QSO.
The total QSO score after the power multiplier (x2) came out to 3184 points an 800 point improvement. Most QSO's made were 2 point digital QSO's. There is no question that the fascination of FT8 has been established and remains strong. Only Glenn N4MJ made CW QSO's which are also 2 points each. What was really interesting were the open band conditions on the higher bands including 6M. It was great to see 6M and 10M come to life ! 15M also did very well and 80M and 40M were the nighttime bands to be on. The total submitted score was 5014 points for Reelfoot Amateur Radio Club in the class 2A category. This was a marked improvement over the previous year and under the same rules.
Our 1D stations turned in the following scores : Harrell WD4LAR - 98 points and Phil N4PWG - 534 points. The combined total score for Reelfoot Amateur Radio Club for Field Day in class 2A this year comes to 5646 points. We will see how this score stacks against our peers. Who knows how the rules will be next year, but it is expected that this will be the last year for modified rules.
Epilogue:
As we come out of the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was apparent that many were itching to get back to "normal" and start enjoying each other's company. The camaraderie of our small group was amazing, but what was really encouraging was the participation of our youthful visitors ! We had a new successful Extra Class tester and a lot of fun with minimal antennas. The GOTA station was reactivated this year and was very successful and contributed mightily to the overall club score. The satellite QSO which had eluded us for a couple years was finally made and was great fun !
Photography for this event was provided by Michael AK4VU, Harold KJ4FTM and Jamie WB4YDL .
The Shop at the QTH of Glenn N4MJ was once again the perfect Field Day location and the club members owe many thanks to Glenn and XYL Linda for a wonderful experience. Thanks also go to our XYL's who kept us fed and hydrated. The full Field Day results are published in the December issue of QST.
Soapbox:
Glenn N4MJ :
2021 Field Day
Thanks to our FD Chair & President, Jamie/WB4YDL, for once again putting together a well-organized and successful FD.
FD 2021 saw slimmed down activity in CW and Phone’ - digital ruled. Antenna construction was simpler and easier. Operator activity also slimmed down. In the end, those who participated, be it at the FD site or from home, garnered a very good end score. 
It will be interesting to see how we compared with other 2A groups but we’ll have to wait until November/December time frame to find out.
Set up of the equipment and antennas was much easier, especially the antennas.
The GOTA station had much better participation from youth and all of us are glad to have that; not just for the score, but for introducing youngsters to our great hobby/interests. Getting a youngster's interest can be challenging; hopefully exposure to Amateur Radio during FD will spark a new generation of hams, scientists, engineers.
Many thanks to Noel, KJ4UNX, for grilling the burgers and 'dogs Thanks to everyone who supplied drinks, sandwiches, the “best’ beans, chips, and sweets. It was a picnic on steroids. LOL
Congratulations to Patrick Hall, KO4HEX, for passing his Extra test at the VE session on Saturday morning with a score of 96%, missed only two questions.
Ops: Mike, (AK4VU), Noel, (KJ4UNX), Harold, (KJ4FTM), Jamie, (WB4YDL), Mike (N4EBA), Patrick (KO4HEX), Glenn (N4MJ) and 1D Ops Phil (N4PWG), Harrell (WD4LAR).
VE Team: Randle (KN4OPZ), Harold (KJ4FTM), Glenn (N4MJ).
A special thanks to our elected official who visited our site – Mr Ralph Puckett. Always a pleasure to engage in conversation with Ralph.
The weather was hot and humid but at least we didn’t see rain and/or thunder and lightning; that was a change from years past.
Enjoyed the FD activity, food, camaraderie.
73 de n4mj//glenn
Noel KJ4UNX :
I was very pleasantly surprised by all the youth that came for our little exercise this year. I wouldn't have cared if I didn't make a single contact as long as the kids got on there and had fun on the rigs. I believe one thing that helped that was no mics, consequently no mic fright; I never flopped down in front of the radio until all the youth was gone just because of that reason alone.
All of the food was great, especially the chocolate cake. I was told it was too pretty to cut. Boy, I proved everyone wrong I dug into it like a fat man in an all-you-can-Eat seafood buffet.
After the gremlins were evicted and the PC’s we're talking to the radios, everything slowly and smoothly Fell into place.
I had a great time operating, enjoying fellowship, and swapping stories with old and new friends. I hope field day turns out like the world fair. It gets bigger and better every year.
To sum it up it was a great weekend could not beat the weather.
We might ponder the idea of operations as a club again for the VHF contest later in the year. I bet Patrick and Ben and possibly the young ones may have a ball at it and get their first wallpaper. Plus, that should be in the time frame when we aren't having meetings, so it will be a good way for members to contact each other.
73’s kj4unx
Patrick KO4HEX :
First off, I would like to thank Randle KN4OPZ, Harold KJ4FTM, and Glenn N4MJ for being available to test me for my extra class. My first Field Day experience was great, from raising the flag, all the way to breaking down antennas. Seeing all the kids come in to operate was a sight to see. I operated for about 11 hours straight, from about 5pm until about 4am. I thought I could make it until daylight but had to cash in so I would have some reserve energy to make the drive home. Overall, I had a great time. The food was awesome and seeing some of the new modes that I’ve never operated on, such as Winlink, was fun too. I look forward to next year!
73, Patrick
KO4HEX
See you on Field Day 2022 !
When all else fails ... Amateur Radio.
