Playing the field

 It was field day eve. It was the Friday and I did not have any specific plans for the ARRL Field day 2026. I was performing a regular scan of my spam folder to ensure nothing that was needed was lurking there. And lurking there was a piece that did not belong there. It was an email from Dan (KB6NU) wondering if I could work the CW Station for W8RP field activities. Fortunately, he had sent me his mobile number as well. So I immediately texted him, that I can fill in any slots if they still had a need. I get an immediate response from him that I can do the 8PM-12PM (0000UTC-0400 UTC). That suited me fine. 

Around 6:30PM on Saturday (2230 UTC) I head out to soccer fields adjacent to the Ann Arbor Municipal airport where the ARROW Club had set up the W8RP stations. It was a pretty grand affair with about 4-5 trailers and a tent. The info tent had information booth for curious visitors. I also believe there was a GOTA station. There were two CW stations running on two different trailers. One trailer was dedicated to data and possibly the other for SSB. After having IRL QSOs with fellow hams, I headed over to the CW station. The happiness on the ham operating the station was a sight to behold. He told he'd been at the station for over 7 hours. 

K4D at W8RP during field day

After a quick hello, I was ready to take over the operations. The radio for the day was an Elecraft K4D. It was paired with a KAT500 tuner and a contest filter paired to a dipole. It was further kitted with a large panadapter display and a Begali Sculpture to boot. I've never seen or operated a K4D before, and I was eager to jump in. So after a quick familiarization with the setup I jumped in to continue the operations. It was not a very busy day and the atmosphere there was not competitive. The previous operator was running in the mid 20wpm and I continued to do the same. At around 0100 UTC I switched over to the 80m band and continued operations there. I was almost entirely "running" the operation. I did not do search and pounce as a) I was not familiar with N1MM+ and did not want to change the settings b) The tuner was narrow Q and I may have to retune often. The latter involved bypassing the contest tuner, and turning on the LP tune mode on the K4D after engaging the KAT500 into the tune mode. All in all I believe I averaged just over 50QSOs per hour in the four hours I was operating there. Come midnight, it was time for me to leave. My XYL had to work the next day and I told her I will be there a little after 1AM. It was a cool night when I geared up for the ride home. There was still a near full moon out. It was eerie to see the football fields where the field stations were set up punctuated with the glow from the monitors and other electronics. I was on the lookout for deer on the way back, but fortunately none of them were active. Soon I was safely ensconced in my bed.

Field day setup at Maybury State Park. Operated as class 1B

The next morning, after seeing off my XYL to work, I headed over to my favorite park to have a combination field day and POTA outing. I operated as "1B" station and managed to have great fun. I was happy to see the bands buzzing with activity. After a while I decided to setup my station in the downtown Farmington (Michigan) area. I worked a few hours there hoping to attract any curious passers by. But strange as it may seem, there never was a curious glance or questions about what I was doing. Perhaps the fact I was right beside the local police station did not stir the usual suspicion in the public passing by. 

While this lack of curiosity was disappointing, the active bands more than made up for it!