Bob, what the heck is that at your feet?
posted 6/29/14
addendum 7/1/14
addendum 7/3/14
Here's Bob - N0BIX with his annual Field Day shot.
Yes, Bob is out sitting in his field!
Bob, what the heck is that at your feet?
Randy - AB8CO and Keith WA8ZWJ headed towards Pennsboro, West Virginia on Friday, June 27th. We knew that we were not going to participate in a "normal" Field Day. Don - KE8NK (Da Bear) who normally hosts our West Virginia Field Day had decided not to host our Field Day efforts this year because of a series of health issues with himself and his wife, Marie.
Randy and Keith made the trip anyway so they could visit with the guys!
Randy and Keith arrive at Charlie - WB8NSL's!
We each turned around twice and tucked in our shirts and Charlie had us head off to the UHF repeater site.
It turned out that Charlie had a repeater work session in mind with the extra assistance.
Here's Charlie after opening up his UHF repeater cabinet.
Charlie was concerned that the power might be down on the repeater because reception at his place was not as strong as it normally is.
Here we are checking the power output on the Byrd
wattmeter.
It turned out that the power was down a bit but the good news was the SWR
from the antenna was OK.
Randy is looking for information to see what pot to adjust
to turn up the power.
He was unable to retrieve the information without sifting through tons of
documentation, so, we pulled the transmitter out of the cabinet and headed to
the 911 center.
The reason for going to the 911 center was because that is where John - WS8C works and he knew which pot we should turn.
Here are Randy - AB8CO, John - WS8C and Charlie - WB8NSL!
Armed with the knowledge of how to adjust the power output
we did a temporary install and checked power again.
Thumbs up! That looks better! Yee haw!
Preparing to reinstall the transmitter into the cabinet.
Rechecking the power through the duplexer.
It seems that the lock on the cabinet had broken, so we
rigged some wire temporarily to hold the door closed.
We went back to Charlie's and visited a bit and then we headed towards dinner!
We went east of town and had a great dinner at the
Greenwood Diner. Don - KE8NK joined us for dinner!
Here are Don, Charlie and Randy!
Randy took this shot of Don, Keith and Charlie!
After dinner we made a brief stop at the original Dotson
log cabin that was built back in 1790 when Charlie's family first came to the
area.
Yes, there is a family who lives here! Obviously many changes have been
made over the years!
Then we took a ride to observe some of the many fracking and cracking set ups that are being done in the surrounding area.
This is a new drilling rig that has recently arrived.
They drill down as much as 6,000 feet and the send as many as 8 different
sideways drills out as much as 6,000 feet in all directions. Once they
have done that they start the fracking process.
Once the fracking is in operation the pipe lines and trucks
move the crude to one of the many cracking plants to separate the good stuff out
of what is being brought up from below.
There are hundreds of these wells all over the country down there!
The rest of our evening was spent on Charlie's front porch
enjoying libations and a cigar!
Saturday morning we headed to the Crossroads Cafe in
Pennsboro for breakfast!
We met Da Bear there! As you can see, Charlie is
visiting around the room.
A little while later Randy took this shot with his cell
phone showing Charlie in the background still visiting!
Charlie finally made his way back to our table! Here
are Charlie and Randy!
Randy took this shot of Don, Keith and Charlie...
Group breakfast shot!
Randy - AB8CO, Don (Da Bear) - KE8NK, Keith - WA8ZWJ and Charlie - WB8NSL
Then we made a side trip to Charlie's son's place there in town and picked up another lock for the cabinet. Once that was fixed Charlie gave us a short tour of the other ham gear up on the hill at the repeater site.
Charlie is showing us Da Bear's APRS digipeater!
After we got down off the hill we set to doing a task that Keith had brought along.
At HamVention the IOOK made a purchase for Ron - KA8PBB of one of the new Chinese HT's and programming software and cable. The catch is the software and cable did not seem to read or write to the radio when connected. Charlie has one of these HT's and had programmed it from the keyboard. He provided Keith with a link to a web site that he printed that had out much better instructions for programming the HT from the key pad than were provided in the "Chinglish" manual that comes with the radio.
Here Randy reads the instructions over and over as Keith
programs the radio one step at a time.
The good news is it worked and the radio is now programmed! YEE HAW!
Then we headed off to St. Marys to the "Home Of The
Flying Wing Nutz" that Charlie has become a member of.
Here's a look at their flying field! It is very well
manicured and maintained!
The guy on the far left is flying a model while Charlie and
Randy watch.
Here's a lawn mower getting ready to take off!
It's in the air!
Coming in for a landing!
It is kind of warm this afternoon so the guy takes a break
after landing the lawn mower.
Keith is looking at the Styrofoam model that is incredibly
light! The propeller is held on with a rubber band!
Here's another model getting ready to fly.
Side view...
Our experience at the flying field was a lot of fun! It was quite hot and humid and we even had a brief sprinkle while we were there.
Then we went back to Charlie's and visited some before dinner.
We ended up at the North Bend Restaurant in the North Bend
State Park and had a great dinner.
Here are Don, Randy and Charlie out front after dinner.
Then we went to Da Bear's for some more visit time!
We enjoyed our Beargaritas and our nice visit out at the
traditional Field Day location!
Keith, Don, Charlie and Randy
Sunday morning found Keith, Charlie and Randy at the
P&H for breakfast!
The P&H is one of our traditional stops while in town.
After breakfast Randy snapped this photo of Keith and
Charlie.
P&H stands for the Pennsboro Harrisville Railroad. We think Charlie
was sad because we were leaving already!
After breakfast Keith and Randy headed towards home.
Many thanks to Charlie and Don for their great hospitality! It was a whirlwind trip and we had a GREAT time!
Marilyn had just arrived back home when Keith dropped Randy
off. Here are Marilyn and Randy!
Randy grabbed this shot of Keith as he was preparing to
head back home as well!
I am so glad that Randy was available to join me for the trip! We had a great time visiting and catching up with each other.
Truly, it was not a "normal" Field Day but it was still a lot of fun and we got a lot accomplished in a short period of time!
Even though we never turned an HF radio on we had a fun Field Day weekend!
Best 73!
Respectfully submitted by Keith - WA8ZWJ
====================
Randy says "I was operating PSK-31 digital station at our Coshocton County ARA field day event.
Here is a shot of me operating."
Many thanks to the Fisher brothers for submitting their Field Day photos!
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Mike - KG8CW has submitted these photos taken of some IOOK'ers at the BARF Field Day!
Here's Rob - W8REJ. It must have been about this
big! So, it was a small whopper! Har!
Dave - KJ4KFJ
Mike - KG8CW prepares to launch the weight over a limb of a
tree for an antenna support! Ziiiing!
Master Chef Dave - W8TVC cookin' up the burgers and brats!
Mike - N7LMJ enjoying one of the burgers with Mike - KG8CW
in the background.
Many thanks to Mike - KG8CW for submitting these!
Many thanks to Betty - KC8PCQ for taking the BARF Field Day Photos!
Here's a link to the BARF Web Site so you can check out all the BARF FD photos.
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Yes, we know about the problems that AVG users are having looking at the web sites. Hopefully AVG will soon get their act together!
