Ashe County Amateur Radio Club, Inc.

KK4X, 2A

The Tyack estate is near milepost 258 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which follows the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains as it winds through North Carolina’s Ashe County. It had rained all day Friday and the weather for the Field Day weekend didn’t look good. Harry Mills, KK4X, our crack CW operator, was planning to bring his camper – a sure sign of stormy weather.

Saturday morning through Sunday turned out to be partly sunny and cool. The entire Field Day period was without rain and more importantly, lightning. Just before 1800Z Saturday, I contacted a ham in Wilmington, North Carolina, who gave the weather as 92 degrees, muggy and miserable – it was 75 degrees at our site. In talking to other clubs after the event, I found out we were lucky to be in Ashe County. Others reported having to shut down several times because of thunder and lightning.

The rigs were set up under a shelter and in Harry’s camper. Harry used a Ten-Tec Omni and a CCD antenna for 40 meters. The Novice station used a Kenwood TS-440S HF transceiver with a ten-meter dipole and a G5RV. The other HF station was an ICOM IC-751 HF transceiver with a Butternut HF6V vertical. The satellite station set up in the greenhouse used a Yaesu transceiver and home-brew 2-meter and 440-MHz antennas. The antennas were aimed by hand. All transceivers were operated from a 5-kVA generator provided by Ross Sigmon, W4DOU.

We operated nonstop until the potluck dinner at 2200Z. The rigs were shut down for one hour while we ate. After dinner, we fired up the generator again and operated until about 0530Z. At 1130Z. we started up again and operated until 1700Z Sunday. It was a successful Field Day – beautiful, cool weather; fellowship; food; and everything worked flawlessly!

Lunt, B., & Stankiewicz, W. C. (1991, November). Field Day 1991. QST, LXXV(11), 101–101.

Published soapbox submitted to ARRL by Mike Mahan, KB4WJA