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HOW TO SUCCEED ON FIELD DAY BY REALLY TRYING
The Portland Amateur Radio Club's ARRL Field Day operation at Kelly Butte is one of the finest in the country.
W7LT has perennially placed in the top ten nationally in the 4A class while at the some time finishing as number one in the 4A Battery class. As a newcomer to the club in 1997, I was stunned by our performance, and as FD Majordomo for each of the last two years, I still scan the standings in partial disbelief.
As a general interest club, PARC lacks the cadre of contest ops and top shelf equipment frequently found at other competitive contest sites, and our success
at first appears to be a little mysteries. But there are good reasons why the club does so well.
There are probably five keys to our success: We keep every station up and running for the entirety of the contest; we go QRP; we have an outstanding antenna array; we score every bonus; and we have all the "free" stations that the rules allow.
1. Let no Station go unmanned.
I have no doubt that keeping every station on the air for the entirety of the test is one key to our success. FD is a contest in which slow and steady wins the race. It is ham radio's version of an endurance test, and ensuring
that every station is operated for every hour of the test is no small feat. Running six stations for 24 hours requires 144 man-hours. To gave an idea of the scale, we can break this into bite sized
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chunks - the operation would require 70 ops who average two hours each, 35 at four hours each and so on. We are blessed with a team with a wide range of skill and fortitude - some of our ops
are seated for very nearly the entirety of the test while others go for an hour and no more - so we manage our resources to maximize the amount of time we are on the air. The biggest challenges are presented by the clock and the weather. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, unscheduled ops will float onto the site and keeping the stations active is more often requires asking people to step aside than to step up. The story is different when its cold and wet and 4 am. In fact, the greatest risk of failure is from 2 am to 7 am Sunday morning.
Failure during this period can result in the loss of hundreds of points. Adequate preparation can stem an ebb tide, however. Since operator commitment and comfort are critical during this timeframe, we ask the most reliable ops to work these hours and we try to ensure their comfort. The latter is achieved by making sure
every station is enclosed, that they are comfy chairs and some source of heat and light. I remember seeing WA7VTD operating the 40CW station several years ago at three or four in the morning, although all there was to see was a frozen arm sticking out of a mummy bag. The station was unenclosed and unheated and eventually went down when the strain became too much. Since that time, all stations have been enclosed, preferably in a
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van, motor-home or trailer, and at least in a tent. In our climate, there is a remarkable amount of heat produced by a single light bulb and we've found that by eliminated drafts through enclosures and generating 60 or 70 watts of heat, the stations are better able to make it through the chill of early morning.
2. Go QRP.
The other stunning feature of the W7LT operation is that we run each station At less than 5 watts. This gives us a point advantage over our QRO counterparts and is a large factor in our success. QRP operation present special challenges, however, and the point bonus is well-earned. The station I have the most respect for, and sometimes the most sympathy, is the 4O meter phone station . 40 meter can be tough with 1000 watts and downright impossible with 5 on sideband. This means that our FD operation is no place for rate junkies - if you insist on the thrill of riding a pile-up wave, then Kelley Butte is no place for you.
But it also means that our FD is a great place for people with basic radio skills like good ears and patience. Our stations are almost always in search and pounce mode, and the more successful operators are those who patiently work their way up and down the band in an efficient manner. S&P contesting is an artform, and some of our ops have perfected it; those that haven't can heave great success by simply being good radio operators.
Next to operating skill, a qual (Continued on page 3)
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