Field Day AAR...

So I went up to my buddy Preparedness Junky's homestead this weekend for a little Camping and Radio fun for the 2009 ARRL Field Day. I arrived exhausted, after being up for almost 24 hours, bringing us some much needed sustenance in the form of a couple all meat pizzas from Plank's in Columbus, Ohio... let me tell you folks that there is some of the best pizza you can buy, and when they say all meat they mean it... After getting there and eating we decided to head back and set up camp... this weekend was my first experience in hammock camping. I must say that hammocks are a great way to go.

Sometime later our buddy J arrived, and joined us for the festivities... we all sat around the campfire that evening and goofed off, at some point I decided after being up for 24+ hours it was time for me to sack out. J, and PJ stayed up later and goofed around. At some point J went to go get something from his Jeep, and tripped in a gopher hole... apparently I slept through the this part and missed him rolling around on the ground after this hollering like a bear and the two of them chasing frogs around the pond. I guess I really could sleep through about anything.

So back to the radio stuuff. Since the three of us are only Technician Class license holders we were restricted as to the bands we were able to run. We were further restricted by our equipment. The equipment we had with us limited us to the 2 Meter (144-146Mhz) band and the 70cm (440Mhz) band.

This year 2 Meter and 70cm were both pretty much dead until this morning where we were. Luckily this morning we heard a Field Day station calling for contacts, and we were able to make contacts. So all in all it was a successful Field Day excursion.

My Shack In A Box performed well, it's got some minor bugs, and issues I need to address, but it did work as it needed to for the event. PJ's setup also worked quite well, which I'm sure he'll post about in his blog (Linked in the sidebar).

We did have a variety of antennae out there to test, I had my 2 Meter dipole antenna, PJ, had his 2 Meter Yagi, and a Arrow 2M-70cm J-pole, our buddy Tonto brought out his 2 Meter copper cactus J-pole.

I didn't take any pictures, because I got too wrapped up in testing out the different setups, and everything that was going on, but a good time was had by all, and I can't wait for the next trip.