Category Archives: Field Day

Articles about Field Day stations, antennas, equipment, and operating.

Field Day as a Mentoring Opportunity

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ARRL Field Day is upon us and I wanted to share some thoughts about the mentoring and learning opportunities that Field Day can provide. Many Clubs and other groups here in New England are planning…

Source: Field Day as a Mentoring Opportunity

Field Day provides clubs and groups with a great opportunity to engage and mentor new and less experienced hams. I wanted to share some thoughts and ideas on how we can make mentoring a part of our Field Day activities. You can read more about some successful mentoring activities that have worked well as part of Field Day operations that we’ve been involved in via the link above.

I hope to work many of our readers during Field Day 2021!

Fred, AB1OC

Plans for Field Day 2021 – Nashua Area Radio Society

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We are holding an in-person Field Day operation at Keyes Memorial Park in Milford, NH. Here’s some more on our plans for Field Day 2021. We’d like to invite you to join us…

Source: Plans for Field Day 2021 – Nashua Area Radio Society

I’d like to invite our friends here on our Blog to visit us during Field Day on Saturday, June 26th, and Sunday, June 27th. We will be at Keyes Memorial Park in Milford, NH.

Testing Our Field Day Satellite Station

Testing Our Field Day Satellite Station

We will have a Tower up with a Triband Yagi and we’ll have our computer-controlled portable satellite station at Field Day.

6m LFA Antenna for Field Day

6m LFA Antenna for Field Day

We’ll also have a new LFA Yagi for the 6m Band. We will be a 4A station with a total of 5 Transmitters on the air. Our stations will be equipped for SSB Phone, CW, and FT8/FT4 Digital modes.

We’ll also be doing training sessions on Satellite Operations, FT8 Digital on 6m, and Fox Hunting at 12:30 pm on Saturday, June 26th. If you have an HT, bring it and you can use it to hunt our foxes. We’ll also have HTs available for folks to use for Fox Hunting.

You can read more about what we are planning and find directions to get to our Field Day site here. I hope that we’ll see some of our followers at Field Day!

Fred, AB1OC

Satellite Passes During Field Day 2021

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Field Day 2021 Satellite Passes in FN42

Field Day 2021 Satellite Passes in FN42

We had some time over the weekend so we ran some Satellite Pass Predictions for Field Day 2021 for our Grid Square which is FN42. As you can see, we are going to have a lot of fun working satellite during Field Day! Field Day rules limit us to a single FM EasySat contact using but we can work as many contacts via Linear Transponder Satellites as we wish

Field Day Satellite Station

Field Day Satellite Station

We recently set up and tested our Portable Satellite Ground station here at our QTH and it’s working great! It has produced some good DX contacts into Europe from New Hampshire, USA during the past week.

You can read more about our Portable Satellite Station test here.

Fred, AB1OC

Field Day Satellite Station for 2021 – Setup and Test in Hollis

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The Nashua Area Radio Society will be using our portable Satellite Station this year at Summer Field Day. A number of members got together recently to assemble and test our Computer-Controlled Portable Satellite Station for Field Day. Here are some pictures of our Field Day Satellite Station Test…

Source: Field Day Satellite Station for 2021 – Setup and Test in Hollis

Several members of the Nashua Area Radio Society got together to set up and test our Portable Satellite Station for Field Day 2021. Our station is a computer-controlled one and enables us to work FM and Linear Satellites using phone mode and CW.

The setup uses an M2 Antenna Systems LEO Pack Antenna System on a Glen Martin Aluminum Tower that is set up to be portable. Feedlines use 100 ft lengths for LMR-400uF and LMR-600uF coax cable for the 2m and 70cm bands. The rotator is an Alfa-SPID Az/El unit. The antenna system also uses coax-powered preamplifiers from Advanced Receiver Research. The station uses an IC-9700 Transceiver, a Green Heron RT-21 Az/El Rotator Controller, and a MacBook Air Laptop running MacDoppler and MacLogger DX.

This setup is an updated version of the portable satellite station that we built for an ISS Crew Contact that a local school did with us some time ago.

You can see how the portable station goes together in the article above. You can learn more about the design and construction of our Portable Sation from the series of articles that begins here. We hope to work some of our readers on the birds during Field Day this year!

Fred, AB1OC

6m LFA Yagi for Field Day and Mountain Topping

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6m LFA Yagi for Field Day and Mountain Topping

6m LFA Yagi for Field Day and Mountain Topping

Our 6m Field Day station will be a portable setup and features a new antenna – a 3-Element Loop Fed Array (LFA) Yagi from InnoVAntennas…

Source: 6m Field Day Station – Nashua Area Radio Society

We’ve been wanting to try a Loop Fed Array (LFA) Yagi on the 6m Band. The Nashua Area Radio Society’s 2021 Field Day operation presented us with a good opportunity to do this. We choose a lightweight 3-Element LFA Yagi from InnoVAntennas and used a fiberglass mast to get it up 25 ft (about 8 meters).

The LFA Yagi performed very well! You can read more about this antenna’s performance and our upgraded portable station via the link above.

Fred, AB1OC

Winter Field Day 2020 Final Station Test

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Source: Winter Field Day 2020 Final Station Test – Nashua Area Radio Society

Winter Field Day 2020 is almost here! A few weekends ago, several of us got our QTH to complete the final station test for our planned 5O operation in Winter Field Day (WFD). Activities including setup and testing of a new, Portable Networking Pod and three of our five planned Winter Field Day stations. We are planning to use the N1MM+ Logger in a networked configuration this year…

This article covers equipment and networking aspects of the Nashua Area Radio Society’s planned 5O setup for Winter Field Day 2020. All of our stations will use the N1MM+ Logger to support SSB Voice, CW, and Digital modes.

Fred, AB1OC

Winter Field Day VHF+ Preparations

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Jamey AC1DC with Completed WFD VHF+ Mast

Jamey AC1DC with Completed WFD VHF+ Mast

We are continuing to make progress on our preparation for VHF+ Operations at Winter Field Day (WFD) 2020. We had a lot of fun on the VHF+ bands at WFD 2019 and we are planning to add some more bands for our operation this year. We’ve assembled a portable mast system to put us on 3 new bands…

Source: Winter Field Day VHF+ Preparations – Nashua Area Radio Society

We’ve been busy with preparation for Winter Field Day 2020. My part of this project is to increase our participation in operations on the VHF+ bands (6m and above). We are accomplishing this with a 30 ft push-up mast, some new antennas, and using Transverters for the 1.25m and 33cm bands. You can read more about our preparations and the equipment that we will be using on the VHF+ bands via the link above.

Fred, AB1OC

Field Day Satellites, VHF+ and Fox Hunting

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We will have lots of great activities for folks who are interested in operating on the VHF and above bands at Field Day 2019. Here are some of the activities that we’ll be doing:

  • Satellites Contacts using a Portable Computer Controlled Satellite Station
  • Weak Signal SSB, CW, and FT8 Contacts on 6m, 2m, and 70cm
  • Fox Hunting using Radio Direction Finding (RDF) to find hidden 2m Radio Transmitters
  • Satellite Station, VHF+ Station, and Fox Hunting Training

Source: Field Day Satellites, VHF, and Fox Hunting – Field Day 2019

The Nashua Area Radio Society always brings something new to each Field Day that we do. In addition to our Computer Controlled Satellite Station, we will be adding a state-of-the-art Weak Signal Antenna System and Station to our Field Day 2019 lineup. Our VHF Station will use a dedicated 40 ft Tower with Tower Mounted Preamps and low-loss feedlines. You can see what is going on at Field Day 2019 on 6m and above via the preceding link.

Fred, AB1OC

Final Field Day Station Test

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What goes into an 11A Field Day? Well, for starters, 13 stations! We got together at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH a couple of weekends ago to set up ALL of our Field Day stations at once and test them together. Here’s a rundown of our final Field Day Station Test…

Source: Final Field Day Station Test – Nashua Area Radio Society

The Nashua Area Radio Society does a pretty big Field Day Operation each year. We will be 11A for Field Day 2019 with 4 towers up. Did you ever wonder what goes into pulling off a Field Day this large? Well, it’s all about planning and preparation. Take a look at the article above to see some of the preparation that we are doing for Field Day 2019.

Fred, AB1OC

First Winter Field Day For The Nashua Area Radio Society

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AB1OC Operating at Winter Field Day

AB1OC Operating at Winter Field Day

Source: Our First Winter Field Day – The Nashua Area Radio Society

The Nashua Area Radio Society participated in Winter Field Day for the first time this past weekend. We put up a 40 ft tower and we were QRV on all allowed bands from 160m through 2m and 70cm. Our station was a four transmitter one and we produced a great score during the 24-hour operating period. Winter Field Day presents some unique challenges that we did not encounter during Summer Field Day.

We put together a station for 160m for the first time as well as some other new things. You can read all about our approach to a station and operating for Winter Field Day via the link above.

Fred, AB1OC