Field Day is the fourth full weekend of June. It's an Amateur Radio event with roots in emergency communications and emergency preparedness. The goal is to set up your station some place away from home and communicate with as many other amateurs as you can.

For quite a few years now, my friend Charlie, AE6FD, and I have been meeting at another friend's place in the Gold Country of northern California for Field Day. It's our chance to get away, see each other, play on the radio, and get tormented by Murphy.

This year was special. My son Alex got his Tech license last summer -- KG6MOV. He joined us for Field Day. He had a good time. We had a good time. And, Charlie and I could go to bed earlier, as we had someone to stay up and work 40 meters into the wee hours of the morning!

The overall theme for this year was HOT. We're on a ridge top at about 3000 feet, and it was over 105 degrees F Thursday through Saturday. It "cooled off" to around 90 on Sunday. I'll blame the heat for really rotten propagation on 10 meters.

We're not serious point-hounds. We take breaks for things such as sleeping, eating, looking at the stars. Our goal is to have fun.

Equipment

We run two HF rigs, my IC-706 and Charlie's TS-50. We run both rigs battery-backed solar. Charlie drives up in his truck with solar panels on top and a bunch of deep-cycle batteries inside. He also brings his EXP-14 beam and a really nifty collapsable mast. I bring my R-7 vertical, and usually have something home-grown as well. We do record keeping by hand, the trusty paper and pencil method. A trick that works well for me (and for Alex) is using a Heil headset and a footswitch. "Stomp-to-talk" leaves both hands free.

Nvis

For years we've had problems making contacts in Nevada, Sacramanto Valley, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles -- can you say "skip zone?" Too far away for line-of-sight, and too damn close for skip.

So for this year, Alex and I built an NVIS antenna. As with ham tradition, we sort of followed Jelinek's design. We used stranded 16AWG for the elements. We ran ladder-line from the top of the pole to a SGC-231 tuner mounted at the base. The tuner was powered through the coax using a pair of SGC 54-70 isolators.

Since my normal antenna is the R-7 vertical, I needed a way of switching between the R-7 and the NVIS. We built a remote switch using another pair of SGC 54-70 isolators and a coaxial relay. In the switching unit, the input isolator feeds the center of the RF relay, with DC from the isolator feeding the relay coil. The normally closed RF contact is pigtailed to a bulkhead connector, and connects to the R-7. The normally open RF side of the relay is jumpered to another SGC isolator. I put a circuit breaker between the DC connection on this isolator and the DC connection on the input isolator. This lets me control whether DC is sent along the coax on the normally open (switched) path. In use, the SGC-231 gets connected to this port. After much searching, Alex and I picked some plastic pots for the switch and to cover the SGC-231 tuner. The big pot for the base makes a great place to store cables, NVIS elements, and spare stuff.

Applying DC to the isolator in the shack sends DC (plus RF) down the coax to the switch, closing the relay, and sending RF+DC to the isolator mounted with the SGC-231 at the base of the NVIS. This powers the tuner when it's in use.

Alex and I put up the NVIS in a few minutes. In previous years, the area we were using was dirt -- I expected to pound an extra-long tent stake into the ground to keep the center pole in place. But, our host paved the area. I didn't think he'd appreciate a stake driven through his new asphault! Just setting the base on the asphault turned out to be the right way to do things. We could correct for lean in the ABS pipe by sliding the base around.

The NVIS antenna worked surprisingly well, once we paid homage to Murphy. I used it to work Nevada, Utah, Arizona, LAX, Santa Barbara, Sacramento -- our problem areas and more. Most of the time I stuck to 40 meters.

Murphy

Murphy was present as always, but not too much of a problem. Both our trucks overheated on the way up on Thursday. We initially assembled the beam incorrectly. After we put it together right, we used colored tape to color-code the elements. Why hadn't we done that years ago? Charlie brought up the 40 meter kit, but we decided not to go for that this time around.

Referring to the description of the remote switch, recall that it uses 2 pairs of SGC isolators. Two are built into the switch, and one built into the base of the NVIS. That leaves one isolator. And that's exactly what I did -- I left one isolator at home.

Luckily though, when we got wire, I got a 500 foot spool, and brought it with us. I ran a single wire from the switch pot back to our operating position. Switching was performed by connecting the end of the wire to the +12V fuse clip for the 706.

Except that Murphy wasn't through with me yet. Things worked great through the R-7. Switch to the NVIS -- nothing. We'd brought our HTs with us, so I had Alex listen for the relay in the switch box opening and closing as I put +12 on the control line. That worked. I got my multimeter and went to the NVIS box. Checked the DC connector on the isolator. Nothing. Pulled the coax and checked for DC on the line. Nothing. Went back to the switch box. It had DC in, the relay was energized.

The damn circuit breaker I'd installed was dead!

I removed the circuit breaker and connected all the positive wires in the switch together. Following Silicon Valley tradition, the defective circuit breaker was Widlarized. I may add a photo of my Widlarizing tool. It's a must-have for any lab.

Of course Murphy visited my buddy Charlie as well. He was getting rotten results with the beam, and couldn't figure it out. We checked cables. We checked this, and that. We were getting ready to pull his SWR meter out of the loop and drop my Bird 43 in place when he decided to run wihout his SWR meter. Whaddya know! Something funky in his SWR meter! I offered him the use of the Widlarizing tool, which he declined. Don't know what he did with that meter.

Next year

We're already looking forward to next year. On the drive back home, I asked Alex what he thought we needed for next year. His response? More power and better antennas! I think we have another ham in the family!

73-

Bob K6RTM