Amateur Radio’s annual Field Day event was held June 22nd and 23rd this year and MIRA members were out in force!
Although the event has evolved from its humble beginnings of being a way to get hams to get ‘out in the field’ and setup/test equipment outside of their ham shacks, it is now seen as a chance to showcase our ‘Emergency Preparedness’ capability and support to the community. It’s also a great opportunity to introduce friends, family, neighbours and the rest of the public to all the different facets of our communications hobby.
MIRA set up our Field Day operation at what is called ‘The Labyrinth’ which is a former hovercraft-landing pad at the end of the Parksville Community Park. The location is pretty ideal for us, as it’s easily accessible to the public but not in the main traffic stream; has plenty of room to set up trailers, generators, display tables and antennae; and, as a bonus, has a fantastic (from a visual and radio point-of-view) vista of the beach and the ocean!
Al (VA7MP) and Dave (VE7TE) trucked in the ESS, OECT and Al’s personal trailers in Friday night. Then, early Saturday morning with the arrival of a large contingent of MIRA members, we got started on setup!
Don (VE7AX) set up his new multi-band fan dipole to run CW in the ESS trailer.
‘Other’ Don (VE7ATJ) set up Frank’s (VE7DSN) NVIS antenna over in his usual position at the side of the Labyrinth.
Ron (VE7RQX) set up an AREDN station near the entrance to the pad.
Al (VA7MP) set up his vertical and the information table at the head of the site, with the best view of the ocean 🙂
Len (VE7XLH) and Kelly (VA7KGW) set up the OECT trailer (with some help!) complete with its new fan dipole antenna.
It all went pretty smoothly, although we did have some hiccups getting all the laptops networked together with N1MM logging software.
Eventually it all got sorted and we were ready to go by the 11am appointed start time! We ran as VE7MIR (the club’s call sign) and ran in class 4A. MIRA doesn’t really run Field Day as a contest, but rather as a chance to exercise our emergency preparedness ‘chops’ and show off to the public a bit. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cloudy and cold on Saturday morning, so we didn’t get all that many visitors from the public, but there were a number of hardy souls who came to see us and asked lots of questions!
We ran the various stations rather casually (not in full ‘contest’ mode) from 11am to about 7pm at night (no all-nighters for us 🙂 ). Then some of headed home, while Al and Tony (VE7AJN) stayed overnight to ensure the site was preserved.
Sunday morning we were back on site early and were back at it — making contacts all the way up to the 11am ‘finish’ time. All in all, we made just under 180 contacts from all over North America (and some into Europe!) for a score of 572. That’s certainly not going to set any records, but we had a lot of fun which was the main goal.
Many thanks to Al, who did all of the cooking to provide sustenance for the weary operators, and to all of the members who helped out with setup and take-down.