The Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association

By Ron Chester, W6AZ. 2004-07-14

Successful actions to strengthen

• The GOTA station: More QSOs than ever before and lots of great successes in giving a lot of people their first taste of being on the air. Kudos to Jim Rice.
• The GOTA station made 42 QSOs on 10m, thw most we’ve had at a FD since 2000.
• Our media coverage was excellent. Articles in the Mercury News and Palo Alto Daily in advance and then the San Mateo Times appeared at the site with a reporter and photographer. Kudos to Wally Porter.
• The first PSK31 QSOs ever made at our FD. Kudos to Michael Furman
• We had the most 80m QSOs we’ve had in recent years.
• Pink’s handling of the traffic messages. Kudos to Pink Foster.
• The excellent steaks. Kudos to Dr. John and the cook, Don Nelson.
• The hand-crank QSOs went off without a hitch, after Wayne Burdick bowed out at the last moment. Kudos to Mikey and Andy.
• The generators were completely reliable. Power was always fully available wherever it was needed. Kudos to Gerry Tucker and Doug Teter.
• The towers and beams were all erected and lowered safely. Kudos to Gerry Tucker, Doug Teter, Rolf Klibo, Steve Brune, and many others who helped.
• Tons of excellent photos of our operation were taken. Kudos to Steve Brun and Peter Sheerin, and others.
• The APRS demonstration went off without a hitch, though it would have been good to get a lot more people to see it. Kudos to Andy and Marvin Brune.
• The APRS demonstration went off without a hitch, though it would have been good to get a lot more people to see it. Kudos to Andy and Marvin Brune.
• The satellite station was carefully assembled and did succeed in getting its signal transmitted from at least one satellite, but alas, without making a QSO. Kudos to Bill Rauch, Rolf Klibo, Rob Goodson, and others.
• Visitors were greeted and made to feel welcome. Kudos to the sisters & Carol.

Corrections needed for the future

• The failure of the 40m beam; assembled incorrectly when Gerry had to be somewhere else and then it was pointed West for hours, preventing QSOs because of its excellent front to back ratio.
• Not enough backup low-band antennas, resulting in complete down time for the main stations at times. No 160m antenna, only one 80m antenna, no 40m wire antennas. The CW station had 2:37 with zero Qs, the phone station had 2:06 with zero Qs, and the GOTA station had 8:55 with zero Qs.
• Major interference between the phone and CW stations when they were on the same band.
• Insufficient training on how to use the logging software and the radios.
• VHF/UHF station using the wrong call sign, K6OTX, for the first 45 QSOs.
• The public information table was too little, too late, with too much wind, so that the available information was not distributed broadly enough. This was W6AZ’s fault.
• Inadequate planning to ensure enough operators of the main stations, especially CW.
• The failure of the satellite station to make a QSO.
• Manual logging of the GOTA QSOs made for more work for the control ops, resulted in nine QSOs that were dupes, and made more work to compile the submission afterward, as some of the handwriting in the log was difficult to read.
• Manual logging of the hand-crank QSOs resulted in one dupe, W7ECA. One call as written also appears to be a busted call, K4RHS.
• For most of the time the CW operator was wearing headphones, which prevented the CW activity from being heard in the trailer. This wastes an opportunity for the public to hear CW and for greener ops to practice their CW copying ability. The station must be configured to allow the op to wear headphones while still permitting the audio to be heard on a speaker!
• The chaotic presentation of the food for the steak dinner and poor facilities for eating the dinner.
• A major shortage of proper chairs, even at the operating positions.
• A shortage of tables for the public information table and for food preparation, serving, and eating.
• Inadequate shade and wind breaks in the public information areas.
• HTs could have been used more to facilitate communication between the participants. For example, when the CW logging computer locked up someone had to walk outside and down the hill to find Andreas, rather than just calling him on a local 2m frequency.
• Inadequate planning of the packet demonstration, so that it did not qualify for the bonus points.
• The SSTV demonstration was missing in action.
• Loud QRM in the main trailer from those not operating the stations, as this became a major meeting place for club members and visitors.
• Saturday night the CW station was making the lights dim as the rig was keyed.. The reason for this is unknown and needs to be determined and fixed.
• No lights in the latrines at night. Were two really needed, rather than one?
• The firemen noted that we did not have many fire extinguishers in evidence.

Ideas for the future.

• Get the GOTA operation into a large tent along with the public information table, so that there is plenty of room for people to watch their friends/family trying their hand at the mike. Use the opportunity to invite people to join the club. Get a flyer and/or newsletter into their hands. Get each person’s name & address so that we can contact them later. Sell them the ARRL book on how to get licensed. Have a photographer stationed so that anyone making their first QSOs ends up with a photograph commemorating the event. Keep an operator at it until they brighten up and end off only after they’ve had some fun with it. Use the GOTA trailer simply as a storage trailer that is used to store and transport gear to the site, such as decent chairs, tables, supplies, etc.
• Consider having the small trailer located down by the park entrance to encourage people to come up the hill to the site. (Peter’s idea.)
• Don’t just go for QSO points with the on-the-air operation of the GOTA station. Encourage the new people to tell the other side of the QSO that they are making their first contact ever. Let a little regular communication develop; how old are you, what is your name, how do you like being on the air, etc.
• Keep in touch with the GOTA operators after the FD, offering to help them with getting their own stations set up and on the air. PAARA could provide a large pool of Elmers for these new hams, and perhaps even equipment to loan to them.
• Really plan to encourage visitors to arrive for the event. Make contact with local schools to get them to bring interested youngsters. Make contact with local senior centers to get interested visitors from there. Arrange for transportation up and down the hill. But before we do this, we must make sure that we have reorganized things to make it easy for them to all get a crack at the mike and to easily see their friends/family doing the same. We could also survey the park to see if there is any location that might be more accessible to visitors to the operation.
• We should replace K6YQT with a vanity call that is easier to use and more memorable to the new hams and hams-to-be that use it.
• Use wood/glass display cases at the public information tables to display all of the information available to be distributed to the public without having it blown away in the wind. W6AZ has some.
• Get the main operating area opened up by usign a huge tent, so there is much more room for people to gather to watch, but also room further back where people can talk among themselves without QRMing the station operators. Then allow those who want to watch and learn to be up close, but quiet, while those who want to talk are much further back. Pipe each logging computer screen to a larger display that can be easily seen from the area where people are talking.
• Perhaps we could have an ATV camera focused on the phone station rig, with its video going to the same screen as the logging computer screen. This would qualify for the 100 bonus points as an ATV demonstration, but it would also serve a useful purpose of allowing a crowd to see the action without being so close to the operators.
• Research the scores that other clubs are making in Category 3A, 4A, 5A, etc. See if we might be able to have a competitive operation in those higher classes. (Definately we could. Competition is LESS in 4A, 5A.) This would permit our two main stations to be operated by the pros, really cranking for the points. But it would make other rigs available to greener ops who could learn to develop their contesting skills by operating on other bands. These stations would concentrate on training the operators. Each green operator or logger would have a more experienced operator nearby who would help them improve their skills.
• The challenge of going to a higher class is that a reliable computer logging network would be required for dupe checking between stations. This is not critical now because all phone QSOs are made by one station and all CW QSOs are made by the other station. But surely in Silicon Valley we can get such a network set up and working reliably. Otherwise, we could just have a dedicated logging laptop computer for each band/mode and move the computer to the station that is working that band/mode.
• Get information from the West Valley Club or NCCC on how they isolate all their various stations from each other. Find out what band-pass filters they use. Find out what rigs work well in such an environment and which ones do not. Really tackle and totally handle the problem of cross-station interference. Make it possible for the phone and CW stations to be on the same band at the same time with peaceful coexistence.
• Get more multiband antennas set up as backups, so that any station always has many bands available to it at any time. These can be simple wire antennas hoisted up the towers, dipoles, vee beams, inverted Ls, etc.
• Get the club out into the field at other times in the year to test out wire antennas, to work on eliminating the interstation interference, and to give operators practice with the logging software and the rigs.
• On Friday set up the tribander on the portable mast trailer first and get a station on the air immediately. Use it to get the operators comfortable with the logging software before the contest starts.
• Consider a different configuration of the towers and operating positions. We are allowed a circle with a 1,000 foot diameter. Consider having towers at the four corners of that circle, with the operating positions in the middle and a large horizontal loop running around the permieter and vee beams pointing east, along with dipoles, for the wire antennas.
• Or per N6WG, get the towers far apart, with their ends in a line to reduce interstation interference. Consider a separate generator for the phone station vs. the CW station when they are on the same band. Or run the CW station at lower power and with batteries when they are on the same station as the phone station.
• Get the new tower trailer rigged so that one tower can be easily transported and quickly erected from it. That would give us five towers; monobanders on 40, 20, 15, & 10 plus the tribander.
• Schedule operators in advance so that the two main stations are never idle and if there are enough ops, keep three or four stations on the air at all times.
• Schedule enough operators to have one station running digital modes and/or a second station with CW, at all times. Also schedule CW ops for the VHF/UHF station.

Field Day Goals and Purposes

ARRL Stated Purpose

We should review the stated purpose of Filed Day according to the ARRL rules.

• To work as many stations as possible on any and all bands.
• Learn to operate in abnormal situations in less-than-optimal conditions.
• Develop the skills to meet the challenges of emergency preparedness.
• Acquaint the general public with the capabilities of Amateur Radio.

PAARA Purposes

Some of our purposes in the past might be as follows.

• To score high in our category, winning the Pacific Division, or better.
• To win the Plaque in the competition of local clubs.
• To have a lot of fun.

Other purposes to Consider

• Anyone who wants to learn something new about ham radio, or get more experience with some aspect of ham radio, can do so at Field Day.
• Help any club member who wants to operate to do so, and help him/her to learn a lot in the process.
• Develop our own expert operators, so that we don’t depend on hired guns.
• Put on a great show for the general public to come see.
• Interest a lot of new people of all ages in ham radio.
• Get many of these new people to join the club, get licensed, and become active hams.
• Make it easy for new hams to get a lot of experience on the air, so that they are encouraged to remain active and to upgrade their licenses.
• In particular help the Technician class members to hav a lot of success with operating on the HF bands, so they have added incentive to upgrade their licenses.
• Make it easy for members to experiment with new modes, such as the digital modes, which they might not have experienced before.
• Establish a smooth running operation that can be assembled rapidly, so that it really is an available asset in the time of emergency. That is, a quick response emergency communications team.