[WVARC] WA6LXN/6 Field Day Results

[Leigh S. Jones]

You had to go and wax poetic on us there Marty... 

FD memories:

1) a bunch of crazy kids getting together every year and the miracle that no one was ever badly injured

2) Matts 30 watt novice transmitter into the Hygain equivalent of the Gotham Vertical ground mounted on a superb hilltop works no better than the same down in the valley and some crazy non-ham participant's 1952 Chevy boat tearing up and down washboard dirt roads with two of our other participants clinging to the roof of the car because we couldn't fit them inside the car

3) operating 2A at W6CXW/6 from a vacant lot near WB6NWK's location -- a garbage looking homebrew 3 ele 15 yagi at eye level (about 5 feet) works 10 db better than a TA-33 at 25 feet.  WB6NWK's high pitched prepubescent voice cuts through QRM, so I emulated his results by doing all of my future phone contests while straining my voice to squeak like a dolphin

4) The first WVARC FD. a 5A effort with several super portable plywood-spreader quads made all previous FD participation by our group's members look, well, amateurish. Two other squeaky voices manning 15 M with one of the plywood quads making huge contact totals and having both the Frankfort Radio Club operator and the PVRC operator tell me our signal dominated all bands on the East Coast

5) WB6VFJ's Hygain yagis the next year made the quads look as feeble as Gotham verticals. I slept overnight at the site Friday night to guard Ken's antennas, and another police car turned on his lights and sirens once per hour, awakened me and checked ID's and letters of permission

6) riding to Contractors Point in WB6WIT's red 65 mustang the evening the crane was coming to Contractors point to raise W6GP's telephone poles

7) WB6VFJ's 5 element long boom yagis at Contractors Point and three elements on 40 M, but the single antenna with the highest contact total is the 15 foot high 40 meter dipole used on phone during the daytime

8) 60 QSOs per hour on 80m CW for four solid hours well after midnight, then the next two hours waiting for the rental place to open up so a new generator could be rented to us down in the valley (80 m Hygain tape dipole at 20 feet).

9) Thad actually repairing a defunct generator in the dark and putting us back on the air just before the new generator came up the road.

10) the worries before FD that we'd lose hundreds of contacts per band because of interference from W6SD.  Looking out the tent at W6SD's yagis visible on the hill above us during our 20 m contact, but having trouble pulling his exchange through interference from the Midwest 

11) W1ZM, a guy I didn't even know, calling me on a wats line Monday morning early from Connecticut -- a WVARC member told him I would be submitting the logs -- and he was excited to learn whether his club had defeated us.  I don't remember which club, some "wireless association" that put on the biggest effort Connecticut had ever seen to try to defeat, in particular, our already famous club, the one in the movie, sparing no expense.  The foul mouthed cursing you never hear on the air when I told him our numbers. The eventual congratulations. More cursing.  Years later he gave me a remarkably similar call when he came in behind me in the ARRL DX contest.

Leigh S. Jones KR6X

On Jun 26, 2013, at 15:10, "Marty Woll" <n6vi at socal.rr.com> wrote:

> Hi, all.
>  
> Great to hear from so many of you recalling our glory days, when our motto could have been, "Never trust anyone over 25 . . . just beat them!"
>  
> A look through the November issues of QST for the following years reveals the club's results:
>  
> 1969 -  1st place, 4A
> 1970 -  1st place, 4A
> 1971 -  1st place, 4A
> 1972 - 2nd place, 4A
> 1973 -  1st place, 4A
>  
> Yours truly was fortunate enough to be included in the results article photos, wearing my mighty Superex headphones with custom perspiration absorbers courtesy of Kimberly Clark (a.k.a. Kleenex).
>  
> A few fond memories include:
>  
>  - putting up two full-sized 40m 2L quads, one 'phone and one CW, and having to shoo a pesky rattlesnake that sat in my path as I tried to tie off the lines
>  
> - being belted atop a 100' pole to mount the 20m beam and having it get stuck on the way up.  Since we didn't know about such things as snatch blocks back then, the ground crew stood a good distance away and gave a mighty pull, which not only freed the stuck yagi but almost freed the pole from its foundation!  It creaked and swayed back and forth for what seemed a couple of minutes as my yet-short life flashed before me
>  
> - hooking up my new Drake line for its first Field Day outing, replacing my green Collins wannabe's (SB-301 /SB- 401)
>  
> - pooling our not-so-massive financial resources to pay A. A. Wanamaker Rents the princely sum of $35 for the weekend use of a generator
>  
> - seeing WA6PNN's camera flash on Contractor's Peak from my home and having him copy my headlight CW in reply
>  
> - watching WA6TLV in our Novice tent running at 45 wpm
>  
> - using WB6UJY's telescope to watch the W6SD ops on the next hill drinking  beer and generally milling around
>  
> I have to say that WVARC was one of the best starts to a Ham Radio career  that anyone could have had.
>  
> Thanks and 73,
>  
> Marty N6VI
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Victory through Mug
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