This was my first year ever participating in Field Day as a club member and operating a K3. What a great event and what a great radio.
The K3 performed flawlessly, I especially liked the DSP shift and width capability, and the NR ability to reduce noise to hear weaker signals. Loved the versatility of the K3 and its ability to adapt to the preferences of all our club operators. At all times our K3 had three paddles including a bug, a WinKey and at least two sets of headphones connected. During the daytime the external speaker and a portable speaker were going for the public. Great to see the shift change and a new set of operators get right into the action without having to change any of the setup. My two cents on Field Day: Even though the intent may be to help prepare for emergency operations and showcase amateur radio to the public you have to provide something for everone in order to get the most participation by club members. Our club provided breakfast, lunch, dinner and plenty of snacks and water and all the coffee one could ever drink for all it's members. A tent between our two operating locations was set up with food and plenty of tables and chairs for folks to socialize and enjoy each other. We has two SSB stations, a CW station, a digital station, a VHF/UHF station, a GOTA station and a MARS station going. County and State officials were invited, a few actually showed up. One member lead visitors on tours throughout the day and provided educational events. Other members took care of logistics during the day, such as getting rid of accumulating trash and keeping an eye on the general well being of people in 96+ degree weather. Our public information booth was setup to greet visitors and ready to sign-up and welcome new members into the club as well. We had unlicensed folks behind microphones for hours, had an unlicensed teenager stay up all night logging for our CW ops. Our CW operations were close to 800 feet away from our other setups to help with antenna separation but only 50 feet or so from where the public parked their vehicles. Had lots of time between my CW shifts to visit and get to know other members and watch them participating in their favorite modes. Don't forget the few who volunteer as your club Field Day Committee to make the event happen. They give many hours of their precious time behind the scenes to plan, set-up, take-down, clean-up after the event when others are long gone, all for the benefit of the members, guests and public. Sorry to say this was my first Field Day and not my 34th. Doubt I would have been there if not for the club and those members interested in contesting. Doubt I'll be there next year unless there is an interest in helping the club and members who are interested in contesting. Karl NM7N _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
