{"id":2096,"date":"2016-05-10T20:35:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T20:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/?p=2096"},"modified":"2016-05-10T20:35:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T20:35:43","slug":"field-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/?p=2096","title":{"rendered":"Field weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Derek,<\/a>Friday 29th April saw the start of the TSGARC big Field Weekend. OK, not quite the same as its\u00a0BBC Radio 1 namesake but just as much fun \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0Setup took place\u00a0on the Friday and was finished by late afternoon – much quicker and more smoothly than last year. \u00a0The event ran over the following Saturday, Sunday and everything was dismantled and removed by mid-Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

So a big thanks to those that came and who helped setup and\/or remove everything. \u00a0An event like this was\u00a0only possible thanks to some accommodating\u00a0friends of John, M6EQQ who allowed us to use their field. \u00a0As a thank you the club bought them a bouquet of flowers and some beer. \u00a0I will let you work out who received what! \u00a0Like preceding days, the Monday was a relaxed start and the dismantle job only started late morning. \u00a0Unfortunately, as some people know only too well it started raining just after lunch which incentivised speedy work. \u00a0But some of us got a little damp – Rex \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"FT-897,<\/a>Over the whole weekend there where two radio tents, the first used the FT-897<\/a> loaned to the club by Derek. \u00a0This allowed HF and VHF (6m) operation using a\u00a0G3TXQ Hexbeam from MW0JZE<\/a> (top image). \u00a0VHF (2m) operation was possible using a\u00a09-element Yagi from Tonna. \u00a0The FT-897 PA provided 100w on HF and 50w on 2m. \u00a0The highlight of the first day was a solid 17m contact into Japan by Derek using SSB. \u00a0But there where also lots of other contacts across the European and American continents. \u00a0The hexbeam was observed to have useful directivity mounted at 12m atop the trailer tower.<\/p>\n

\"John,<\/a>The second tent used a home-brew HF (20m) Bobtail – orientated to provide East\/West lobes – and a 3-element Yagi for 2m, both courtesy of John M0HFH. \u00a0 \u00a0This tent used the clubs FT-450<\/a> both for SSB and CW plus an FT-857<\/a> and FT-817<\/a> provided by John and Rex. \u00a0The tent also showed rebellious<\/em> tendencies, opting at times, to use some rather exotic batteries which no-one wanted to be anywhere near!! \u00a0Thanks John!<\/p>\n

There, was of course, another tent, a very important tent and one where people congregated. \u00a0The ‘brew tent’ was where we had the stove, tea, coffee and what seemed like an endless supply of bacon – thanks Jane – plus copious amounts of biscuits \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0The weather was mostly dry but a little on the chilly side so this was indeed a popular tent.<\/p>\n

In total we had two big (6m x 4m)\u00a0tents, the rebellious<\/i> tent (2.5m sq) plus a small day tent to keep the generator dry. \u00a0These provided ample space and shelter for the weekend. \u00a0The final accommodation<\/em>\u00a0to mention was the chemical toilet, arguably the most important item to making the field weekend possible.<\/p>\n

\"TSGARC<\/a>Everyone who went had a good time and all the equipment worked well. \u00a0Simultaneous operation of two HF stations was not really possible, or expected, due to the proximity of the antenna’s so perhaps a project for next time\u00a0is to make band-pass filters. \u00a0It was a surprise to find\u00a0\u00a0that even HF low power transmissions broke through on the other tents VHF (2m) activity.<\/p>\n

With only two radio’s in operation at any time it was common to find people in the ‘Brew tent’ or contributing to activities in the field. \u00a0In the above image John, M0HFH is being helped<\/em>\u00a0to connect an ATU to the feed point of the HF (20m) Bobtail.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>There was also some genuine\u00a0help. \u00a0Many hands made light work of jobs including raising the tents and preparing the operating positions. \u00a0Unpacking, assembling and raising the hex beam was made easy with great support. \u00a0Thanks also to Ron, who stuck it out in the rain on Monday to methodically dismantle the hextbeam such that it can be easily\u00a0reassembled next time.<\/p>\n

Personally, I’m already looking forward to another event next year. \u00a0But we may move the date back to the late May Bank holiday weekend as the weather should be a little warmer \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Andrew
\nG0RVM<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday 29th April saw the start of the TSGARC big Field Weekend. OK, not quite the same as its\u00a0BBC Radio 1 namesake but just as much fun \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0Setup took place\u00a0on the Friday and was finished by late afternoon – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[186,98,113,42,27,12],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bobtail","tag-field-day","tag-hexbeam","tag-hf","tag-tsgarc","tag-vhf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}