Winter Field Day 2023

-

With portable operations being the main focus area for the East Leinster Amateur Radio Club (ELARC), partaking in the Winter Field Day is not a surprise.


We set out to establish a station at the Irish Military Museum & Park. Access to the vast camping area was a factor in our success. Located on the north facing side of a hill outside Collon, just inside the Co Meath border. With good take-off for HF DX to the North, East and West.


Our setup consisted of several radio systems in the communication tent. We could operate on 160/80/40/20 metre bands. We used homebrew, dipoles, linked dipoles, EFHW , and Clansman military dipole for the 160m band.


80m and 160m antennas were deployed in NVIS fashion. Where the 40m and 20m were a bit higher relative to the wavelength. Our wires were supported by a 10m telescopic mast, a couple of fishing rods and local vegetation.


Radios were a standard HAM issue Yaesu FT-857D and FT-891. In total we were able to operate 4 bands at the same time. We did not seem to have too many issues with mutual interference.


Michael EI6IRB deserves a special mention for operating top band on his modified Clansman PRC 320. All the radios were powered from the battery.

We had a visit from a friendly HAM Tomasz EI9IDB to whom we are grateful for helping us with the setup. After we established the camp Tom EI5IEB served us with his legendary chilli dish. We fueled up on coffee and at 19:00 Saturday 29th January we began to operate. John EI6IZB kept us warm with a cosy fire pit. When we were exhausted from operating he would welcome us at the fire with a hot cup of coffee.



Frank EI8HIB had an excellent time operating on the 80m band. He made the most contacts during the weekend. Michael EI6IRB got himself into a net on top band. The participants of that net became very interested in his military radio equipment. Johnny EI8IPB operated in tandem with Tom EI5IEB on 20m. Vic EI5IYB entered the activity using Online Amateur Radio Club callsign EI2OARC and worked 40m.


We operated till early hours on Sunday. In the morning the smell of the fry-up got all of us out of the sleeping bags. Tom was at it again! Coffee, chats and we were operating again. We stayed until the 40m and 80m IRTS news bulletin to which we called. Later Stefan EI4KU helped Michael with top band experiments. 

A successful Winter Field Day concluded, with the club having operated for over 24 hours off grid, in a field, in winter, fuelled by coffee and LiFePo batteries.


Before we left we had a tour of the Irish Military Museum & Park. It was too short! There is so much to see. There is so much to see. We would like to thank William for letting us use this most excellent facility.  Fun was had by all and we will be back!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rebuilding a Clansman 1Ah 24 Volt Battery

-
Image
By  Michael Kennedy (EI6IRB) The objective was to undertake a basic rebuild of a 1Ah 24v alkaline Clansman radio battery (NSN 6140-99-620-8058) to allow it to be used on various Clansman radios, particularly the PRC-320 and PRC-351. The battery arrived among the ancillaries with a recently purchased PRC319. It was manufactured in July 1989. Unlikely to charge, let alone hold a charge, the battery was test-charged under constant observation using a standard Clansman 28v battery charger (NSN 6130-99-117-0450). The battery case soon became hand-hot and after ten to fifteen minutes it began leaking battery content which appeared to ‘boil’ and bubble out of the top of the unit. Unsurprisingly, the battery did not hold a charge. As anticipated, it was unserviceable. As the case was in a very good cosmetic condition, there was every chance that the battery could be refitted with a similar voltage and ampere battery and made serviceable again. The first task was to open the unit and remove the
Read more

Black Sky Exercise 2023

-
Image
Introduction On Saturday the 27th of May the members of the East Leinster Amateur Radio Club (ELARC) conducted a Black Sky drill amongst the sunny Wicklow mountains. Some background to the drill. A Black Sky drill is a simulation of a major extended power outage. The power outage can be either man made, such as an electromagnetic pulse, a cyber-attack on the grid or a physical attack on the power distribution network. It can also be caused by a natural phenomenon such as a coronal mass ejection similar to the Carrington event of 1849 which wiped out large sections off the early Telegraph system in the United States. Causing Telegraph stations to burst into flames. Other causes can be winter ice storms, hurricanes, or other major weather events. These black sky events are typically very rare but have a very high impact to the electrical distribution grid. Training Goals This drill is a scripted, Directed Net with some specific training goals: Improve operator message handling skills. Be
Read more

East Leinster Amateur Radio Club have had a Plane Crash!

-
Image
OK, it was only a pretend crash, but it was a great scenario for a training exercise. The East Leinster Amateur Radio Club has been out practicing again – remember our “Black Sky” event earlier this year! This time the project was a bit more adventurous. We got together with the Glen of Imaal Mountain Rescue Team (MR) and with Wicklow Civil Defence (CD) to run a combined operation to practice and hone our skills with simulated emergency communications. We also had a guest observer from the Wireless Communications Laboratory at the Tyndall Institute with us. The Glen team responded to an imaginary small aircraft crash in the Ow Valley (just south of Lug na Coille). This carefully chosen location near Aughavannagh had no mobile phone signal, no Tetra radio signal and was very definitely out of line-of-sight for VHF signals. The background to the exercise was to simulate the failure of the Tetra radio system operated by the emergency services, and to assess the feasibility of using HF
Read more