Is it really Field Day?

Our story of National Field Day, June7th & 8th 2003.

Stockport Radio Society, formed in 1920, has for many years supported this annual Morse Code event and in the past, we've been very successful too! But, with the steady decline in "CW" operating, the last few years have been difficult one's, this year, 2003, the story was to be very different.

Spurred on by our very successful SSB Field Day weekend in 2002, the determination was there to put together a competitive entry in NFD. So, in early May, the bare bones of a plan began to emerge, but, with two big problems to overcome, firstly, the lack of a suitable site, and secondly, the need to track down sufficient trained and experienced operators. Thanks to the ingenuity of Bernard Naylor G3SHF and Ron Smith S3SVW, Chairman of South Manchester Radio & Computing Club and their contacts, both were quickly resolved.

The morning of Saturday 7th June was bright and sunny, and members of the team descended early on our new site in Sale, Greater Manchester. The site, close to the M60 orbital motorway, was a very large field which during the winter was used for football with markings for a number of pitches clear to see. At the time of our arrival, boys of varying age groups were being put through their paces, I wonder if we witnessed the next David Beckham?. In the summer, it also duals as a cricket field and during the afternoon, our attentions were drawn by a match taking place between two local sides. Thankfully, our large red marquee did not provide them with a suitable target! 

This vast open expanse allowed ample space to erect one mast which with the help of surrounding trees would be used to support our 80 & 160 metre dipoles. Added to that our recently acquired portable mast was put into use upon which the "spider beam" for 10, 15 & 20 metres would be placed along with an antenna for 40 metres. Thanks to our hosts, the area was quickly surrounded by a waist high temporary fence so as keep any onlookers safe from our antenna systems.

At all times during Saturday, the weather stayed warm and sunny which raised the comment "is this really Field Day" from more than one participant. Anyway, by the time 4pm had arrived we were raring to go with the first operator in place, who else but Bernard himself in the chair. He was ably assisted for the first few hours by Steve Gilbert G3OAG using our separate spotting station and connection to the DX Packet Cluster kindly provided by the local guru Keith Khan G3RTU both of whom were to feature over the next 24 hours as operators.

The next 24 hours saw QSO's added to the log with great regularity and at this stage thanks should go to the steady stream of operators who came along to fulfill their slot. They were and in no particular order, Steve Gilbert G3OAG, Keith Khan G3RTU, Liam Hrycan M0AWV, John Hrycan M0BEX, Eric McFarlane G3GMM, Ron Smith G3SVW, and of course, Bernard Naylor G3SHF.

Now, what was the station made up of? First of all we used an ICOM IC-735 with an AT150 auto ATU for the main operation. The antennas were the Spider Beam giving full size yagi's of 3 elements for 20 and 15 metres and 4 elements for 10 metres - all at 50 feet up. A rotatable 40 metre dipole at 60 feet, and inverted vee dipoles at 42 feet for 160 and 80 metres.

The spotter RX was a TS830 with loaded vertical for 20, 15 & 10 metres. The lower bands were catered for  by a long wire which found itself being used at times by the main station on 40 metres. The DX cluster was connected on 70cm working at 9600 BPS.

All too soon, the 24 hours came to an end and on final analysis, we had 806 QSOs in the log giving a claimed score of 2966 points, which in last years contest would have positioned us 10th overall. Once again, good weather helped us dismantle the station in record time and at 6pm, you'd never have known we'd been there! 

As well as those already mentioned, thank you to the many helpers who came along over the weekend to make it a successful event.