Fieldday Sep 2024 - PB5X Roberto

Operating the Portbale station

After more than 6 years, we were finally able to organize a new Fieldday activity, as it was the first one after the Corona pandemic. As you may know, when organizing a Fieldday, you have to take into account all sorts of aspects, the most important of which is of course that people are actually present and enthusiastic about the event at the same time. Fortunately, our local radio club (VERON) has enough active members who always enjoy these kinds of events.

During the weekend we had several partcipants who actively particpated with setting up a Portable station, like yours truly. But also other participants and their families just visiting and socializing. In regard to socializing, we aranged for a central Tent where people could sit and talk. Our Fieldday location also included a canteen, toilets and even showers for the people who stayed the whole weekend.

On Saturday evening, a nice BBQ was held where several participants gathered to grill their delicious burgers, beef, fish and more. As you can see in the pictures below, people really enjoyed the delicious cuisine. After the BBQ and around midnight we had to deal with heavy rain showers and lightning, but after disconnecting the antennas and switching from DX to the sufficient drinks (beer & stronger) we had a “blast” where by at least 02.00 we were all 5/9+60 in telling all sorts of HAM stories where some of us had a “swirl” in our pronunciation hi..hi..

As for the DX, some of us worked on VHF and others on HF or even Oscar 100. I only worked on HF where the main bands for me were 10 – 15 – 20 – 40mtr. During the DX and knowing that the Field Day Contest and the All Asian Contest were going on, we managed to contact many different stations from all over the world where QSO’s with VK – ZL – JA were more normal than rare. My operating conditions (see photos below) were an Icom 7300, SPE Expert 1.3K FA – AT and a HyEndFed 20mtr long QRO antenna in the shape of an inverted L. This worked absolutely fantastic. So well that I will definitely plan more Portable activities in the coming period.

Finally, this Fieldday event was long overdue and the reactions from the participants and I quote a few; “… I really missed this …” or “… I can’t wait for next year …” were very positive. All weekend more than 40 participants joined the event and even 40% stayed for the BBQ. So when you see the enthusiasm of the participants, it is perhaps clear that this Fieldday event should become an annual event again.

See you next year ….

73 Roberto PB5X