Ham Radio Field Day

[Ghery]

This weekend is Field Day. Amateur radio operators around the US and Canada get together and set up stations in simulated emergency conditions and see how many contacts they can make. My club, the Olympia Amateur Radio Society, sets up on the grounds of the state capitol in Olympia. We get the Thurston County Communications van, the Intel Mobile Emergency Operations Center van and whatever else we can scrounge up. Antennas get set up and everyone is on the air at 1800UTC on Saturday. Operate for 24 hours.

This year I figured we ought to have some aerial photos to show the set up. I reserved the C-172N, grabbed a volunteer to run the camera and off we went. The first two show the set up of vehicles and antennas. The third is of the capitol grounds on approach to rwy 17 of OLM. The vehicles and antennas are hidden behind the trees in the center of the picture on the road that is running diagonally away to the right. The capital is just inside the OLM class D, so I cleared our plan with the tower before we took off. Circled about 3 times at about 1300 AGL while my passenger took the pictures. He had flown in a Citabria in high school, but like me that was a loooong time ago and he really enjoyed getting up in a light plane again.

Heck of a good excuse to go fly on a nice day.

73

Ghery, N6TPT

 

[gturner]

This weekend is Field Day. Amateur radio operators around the US and Canada get together and set up stations in simulated emergency conditions and see how many contacts they can make. My club, the Olympia Amateur Radio Society, sets up on the grounds of the state capitol in Olympia. We get the Thurston County Communications van, the Intel Mobile Emergency Operations Center van and whatever else we can scrounge up. Antennas get set up and everyone is on the air at 1800UTC on Saturday. Operate for 24 hours.

This year I figured we ought to have some aerial photos to show the set up. I reserved the C-172N, grabbed a volunteer to run the camera and off we went. The first two show the set up of vehicles and antennas. The third is of the capitol grounds on approach to rwy 17 of OLM. The vehicles and antennas are hidden behind the trees in the center of the picture on the road that is running diagonally away to the right. The capital is just inside the OLM class D, so I cleared our plan with the tower before we took off. Circled about 3 times at about 1300 AGL while my passenger took the pictures. He had flown in a Citabria in high school, but like me that was a loooong time ago and he really enjoyed getting up in a light plane again.

Heck of a good excuse to go fly on a nice day.

73

Ghery, N6TPT

Great pictures. I don't think anyone does this here. Is there anything done on 2M repeaters?
Gary KC5IOH

 

[Ghery]

Great pictures. I don't think anyone does this here. Is there anything done on 2M repeaters?
Gary KC5IOH

I don't believe that repeater contacts count for Field Day. 2m simplex is fine, however.

 

[Maverick]

I made a visit to a couple of my ham friends who were set up in a local park. I stayed long enough to have a couple of hot dogs. I didn't do any operating though.

Jeannie ~ N8CTN

 

[AirBaker]

Field Day was always a ton of fun.

KC6PPD