2015 Field Day

Issues and challenges

  1. Tent: Still struggling to find the proper shelter. Winds and rain were too much for the pop up shelter. It failed and is ruined. LARC supplied a back up tent from one of their members. It is cramped, but was working.
  2. Weather: high wind and rain, with cool temperatures. The wind was just blowing the tent around and also blowing the stuff on the table around. Rain: Ypsilanti had over 1.4 inches of rain through 9pm.
  3. Club radio: did not work, so could not bring it. Need to figure out a new radio for next year.
  4. Networking: Mesh network is good in theory, difficult in practice. The LARC supplied server did not handle the Field Day program well: it crashed several times and reset the logging. It also ended up failing TCP and needed to use a file server. The file server information was not easily available to the stations, making the situation to reset up after a power outage due to a generator fueling event difficult. For next time: Need the mesh network on back up power, need to figure out what went wrong with the TCP, need to have detailed instructions on how to bring the network back up. The advantage of using the native WiFi network is that there was no need for back up power, a shorter time to reconnect to the network when needed, and fewer set up issues.
  5. Food: Needed a bit more something for vegetarians.
  6. 12V battery: began drawing a lot of current after it was tied in to be a buffer for the main power supply. Main power supply is only at 13.7V. The 12V battery drew so much current that it tripped the power supply, then drew down the 12V battery to 9V, causing radio resets during transmission. We had to take it out of the network. The problem was that the combined draw of the 12V battery plus the radio was more than the 25A. The 12V battery was OK after recharging.
  7. Radio-computer interface issues.
  8. Rig Blaster interface: Some kind of problem with the RJ connector in the back. Not reliable, needs to be replaced.
  9. Operating the radio headset and speakers at the same time:
  10. Plugging in the headset half way only provides audio to one side of the headset.
  11. The rear audio jack needs to be a stereo jack, but it is only a mono signal. Needed a stereo to mono adapter, but that was not very robust.
  12. Needed a two stereo to single stereo adapter to bring the audio from the back of the radio to the headset and speakers at the same time. This also did not appear to be very robust.
  13. Had feedback while transmitting on the speaker system. Too close to the antenna, or something else? Monitor was off. This went on the whole weekend.
  14. Computer refused to use the internal audio output, forcing the USB audio to be used. However, the USB audio does not work with the ICOM radio in voice mode. I was able to change to internal audio two times during set-up at home, but it would not work in the field. I had to go into the drivers and disable the USB audio. However, when the computer was shut down and restarted, it reinstalled the driver. Need to look at this at home. It did start working correctly again at home.
  15. N3FJP parrot: It would hold the PTT line too long some times. It kept getting “stuck.”
  16. N3FJP software: Locked up and shut down on my computer once. When it reloaded, it could not find the mesh network server, forcing us to relocate it.
  17. USB port assignments: They move around when the radio is shut down and restarted. Kept having to look for it to incorporate the radio interface.
  18. Antenna tuner: The G5RV would not tune on 80m using the internal Icom tuner. The LDG tuner had a lot of problems as well. We did have the coax choke installed. It did eventually tune. It seemed more challenged than before. The overnight crew felt that the tuner was not working correctly, and needed to have its power unplugged and replugged back in for it to work.
  19. Interference with the CW station: Moderate, but was not as bad as before, due to the newer radio. I am not sure putting the two antennas in parallel like was done resulted in improved performance. This was when the CW and SSB1 stations were on the same band. No problems heard with the digital station, even though it was also on 20m.
  20. Generator: Need to have the air vent open, or it stalls.
  21. Digital station: Did not make many contacts, and was not able to obtain the ARRL Bulletin. This station needs a different antenna set-up or something.
  22. Satellite station: No contacts via satellite this year, losing the 100 point bonus.
  23. Contacts:

Band / CW / Phone / Dig / Total / %
---- / -- / ----- / --- / ----- / ---
160 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 0
80 / 281 / 326 / 0 / 607 / 27
40 / 225 / 717 / 23 / 965 / 43
20 / 128 / 287 / 20 / 435 / 19
15 / 70 / 51 / 0 / 121 / 5
10 / 28 / 56 / 0 / 84 / 4
6 / 0 / 45 / 1 / 46 / 2
Sat
-- / ----- / --- / ----- / ---
Total / 734 / 1,482 / 44 / 2,260 / 100
  1. Delta from 2014: 2014 was our banner year, but technical problems with the weather and the network detracted from the totals by a lot:

Differences 2015 vs 2014
Band / CW / Phone / Dig / Total
---- / -- / ----- / --- / -----
160 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 2
80 / -63 / 209 / 0 / 146
40 / -187 / -153 / -1 / -341
20 / 62 / -423 / -10 / -371
15 / -32 / 25 / 0 / -7
10 / 28 / 56 / 0 / 84
6 / -1 / 38 / 1 / 38
SAT / -2 / -3 / 0 / -5
--
Total / -193 / -251 / -10 / -454
% diff / -21% / -14% / -19% / -17%