W6YX - Field Day 2005

GENERAL OVERVIEW

The Stanford ARC will be operating Field Day again this year from Site 530 in the Stanford Foothills, the location of its permanent station. You can get more information about the station and its location from the Club's website at http://www-w6yx.stanford.edu.

Field Day will take place this year on Saturday and Sunday, June 25-26, 2005. Operating activities will begin at 11:00 am local time on Saturday and continue for 24 hours.

The co-coordinators of this year's Field Day effort will be:

• Mark Aaker, K6UFO, contesting@w6yx.stanford.edu, co-coordinator of operating activities
• Ken Dueker, KB6BPM, kdueker@post.harvard.edu, coordinator of publicity and Stanford DPS and EOC liaison
• John Fore, W6LD, JFore@wsgr.com, co-coordinator of operating activities

PLANNING MEETING AND WORK PARTIES

Club members discussed plans for Field Day at the monthly meeting on June 14, 2004 and participated in two successful work parties on June 11, 2005 and June 18, 2005. Station set-up will continue and be completed on Friday afternoon and evening, June 24, 2005 at the club station at Site 530 in the foothills behind the Stanford University campus. Directions by car and on foot can be obtained from the website at http://www-w6yx.stanford.edu/site530.html. If you do not have key access to the access road and the site, the best thing is to call the shack -- 650-856-2737 -- to arrange for access. More information regarding the club and the station location can be found on the club website: http://www-w6yx.stanford.edu.

CLASS OF ENTRY

We are currently planning a class 6F operation, meaning 6 full-time simultaneously active stations, not including the GOTA ("Get On The Air" station) and a vhf/uhf/satellite station operating above 50 MHz. We are selecting this category in part so we can attempt a new all time record in our 5th FD category, but also because we believe this level of activity is best suited to anticipated propagation conditions.

W6YX holds the all-time records in the following categories: Class 6E (2001); Class 7E (2002); Class 7F (2003); and Class 8F (2004). One of our goals is to achieve a score in the range of our last-year top ten score, with a smaller number of transmitters.

TENTATIVE STATION PLANS

The tentative breakdown of stations will be something like the following:

1. VHF/UHF - full time and will include satellite and 6, 2, 440 and 1.2 (phone and cw), but only one transmitted signal at any time
2. 10/40 cw - 10/40 cw, 10/40 ssb and digital will rotate so that only 2 of 3 stations are on at any one time
3. 10/40 ssb - 10/40 cw, 10/40 ssb and digital will rotate so that only 2 of 3 stations are on at any one time
4. 15/80 cw - full-time station
5. 15/80 ssb - full-time station
6. 20 cw - full-time station, except if 20 closes in the middle of the night
7. 20 ssb - full-time station, except for a few hours in the middle of the night if band closes
8. Digital - 10/40 cw, 10/40 ssb and digital will rotate so that only 2 of 3 stations are on at any one time.
9. GOTA (get on the air stationto be operated exclusively by operators with limited operating experience; see below) - will operate, probably 15 and 20 ssb, until it makes 400 contacts.

GOTA Station: The Get On The Air (GOTA) station will operate under a separate callsign from our general operations, using "K6SU" or "Kilo Six Stanford University", thanks to K6UFO who had the presence of mind to grab that call as a club call when it recently became available. The GOTA station can support multiple operators and is intended to be a low pressure environment for less experienced operators to learn to operate in a Field Day situation. It'll be fun, although we do hope that the station will achieve maximum contacts permissible for the GOTA station under the rules (400) (as we did last year).

VHF/UHF Station: In past years the VHF/UHF station has required the most set-up effort. This year, the club's permanent VHF/UHF tower will be ready for Field Day.

Digital Station: The digital station is a key point contributor. Dave AA6XV and Mark K6OWL are working on this aspect of Field Day.

EMERGENCY POWER

The club's Emergency Coordinator, Ken Dueker, has confirmed that Stanford Department of Public Safety will make the same very large, quiet, diesel generator available again this year and that it will be on site beginning Friday, June 24th. As in the past, we will need to borrow from club members additional heavy gauge power cords and power strips to distribute the power around the Field Day site.

PARTICIPANTS

So far, we have not had a chance to contact many of you individually to determine whether you are interested in participating this year and, if so, in what role.
IF YOU DO PLAN ON PARTICIPATING, PLEASE SEND JOHN FORE, W6LD AND MARK AAKER, K6UFO, AN EMAIL AND LET US KNOW (A) THAT YOU PLAN ON PARTICIPATING, AND (B) WHAT TYPE OF INVOLVEMENT YOU DESIRE.

Last year, going into Field Day weekend, this was our list of tentative participants and roles and we look forward as having as many as possible participating again this year:

• AA6IW, Lars Karlsson -- VHF/UHF tower
• AC6JT, Bryan Preas -- digital band captain
• K2RD, Ira Stoller -- HF operator, principally CW
• K6IF, Dan Levin -- 20 ssb [may be unable to attend]
• K6UFO, Mark Aaker -- cw station band captain
• KB6BPM, Ken Dueker -- co-coordinator
• KD6BPP, Shell Karlsson -- GOTA operator (Sunday only)
• KD6RYB, Everett Palmer -- GOTA operator
• KD6WYK, Rich Hyde -- 20 ssb operator
• KG6DJV, Jim Nickerson -- satellite station captain; VHF/UHF operator
• KG6DQK, Rob Longwell -- relief operator
• KG6RZI, Susan Thomas -- available to operate the afternoon of 6/26 and part of 6/27
• KG6SCH, Gabriel Zeltzer -- assist with VHF/UHF set-up; operate GOTA and VHF/UHF
• KG6STC, Andrew Herkovic -- GOTA station operator
• KJ9U, John Shalamaskas -- HF and VHF operator
• ND2T, Tom Berson -- 20 mtr ssb band captain
• N6DE, Dean Wood, co-coordinator
• N6KJ, Kelly Johnson -- available for 8-10 hours; prefers cw
• N6UK, Fritz Sommer, HF operator
• NI6T, Garry Shapiro -- cw and ssb HF operator
• N7MH, Mike Heideman -- HF operator; available to operate most of time
• WA1QQK, Vahe Katros -- HF cw operator; available to operate slow periods
• W6LD, John Fore, co-coordinator
• W6OAT, Rusty Epps -- cw and ssb HF operator
• W6RQ, Curt Kolovson -- HF operator (maybe assist with VHF)
• WN6I, Weo -- ATV demonstration station captain
• WX5S, Matt Thomas -- plans to be active most of night/early morning and to be available to operate much of time

We also have indications of interest generated from website and other publicity from the following individuals who were not involved last year:

• AA6XV, Dave, digital, CW
• K1SAT, Dave, SSB
• K6OWL, Mark Schreiber, digital, CW
• KA2ZOO, Alex, SSB
• KB9ZSU, Chris McNett
• N2YM, Yuichi, CW
• N9FZX, Paul, CW
• W6GEM, Carol, SSB
• W6KNS, Chris Christiansen (Chris has been an active participant in many prior W6YX operating activities)
• WA6CKO, Wesley Chen (who is a high school sophomore participating in a ten-day National Student Leadership Conference at Stanford)
• Callsign unknown, Elaine and Daniel Sack

PUBLICITY

Ken Dueker will take care of publicity as he has in the past. Among other things, he has issued a press release announcing the activities.

OTHER BONUS POINTS

Bonus points are a very important part of our Field Day score. Last year Dean Wood, N6DE, did an excellent job coordinating our effort in this area and ensured that we achieved the maximum bonus points. Unfortunately, he is "bandwidth constrained" and will not be able to handle this for us this year. Please let us know ASAP if you are interested in coordinating bonus points, generally, or leading the charge on any particular category. We will review our bonus point plans at the June 14th meeting.

Bonus point categories include (each worth 100 points unless otherwise mentioned):

1. 100% emergency power - 100 points for each transmitter (other than GOTA station and "free" VHF/UHF station)
2. Media publicity - Ken Dueker will handle
3. Public location - we take the position that the Stanford Foothills is a public location because of the substantial public walking/hiking traffic on weekends.
4. Public information table - Ken Dueker will handle (?)
5. Message origination to ARRL section manager - ?
6. Message handling - 10 points for each message, up to a maximum of 100 points - ?
7. Satellite QSO - last year Jim, N9JIM helped make sure we earned these bonus points and we hope will repeat again this year.
8. Alternate power - generally use battery charged by solar cell - ?
9. W1AW bulletin - ?
10. Non-tradition mode demonstrations - 100 points per mode up to 300 - last year, Weo, WN6I, handled this for us and we hope will repeat again this year.
11. Site visitation by an elected official - this is the only bonus point we failed to achieve last year - ideas/suggestions welcome.
12. Site visitation by a representative of an agency - I believe Ken Dueker arranged for this last year and hope he can handle this again this year
13. GOTA maximum achieved - 100 points if GOTA station makes at least 100 contacts
14. Web submission - 50 bonus points for submitting results via web

LOGGING SOFTWARE

We will use WriteLog again this year as our logging software to simplify networking and voice keying at the phone stations. Mark Aaker and John Fore will take care of this with help from others (Dean, N6DE, Mike, N7MH and John, KJ9U(?)). This year the job should be substantially easier because of all of the work done over the past year to improve our computer/network conditions (thanks, principally, to John S., KJ9U and Bob Vaughn, KC6SXC). Still, there is WriteLog formatting work and loading of voice files for ssb stations, etc., that is critical to a successful operation. If anyone with appropriate experience is interest in coordinating this critical set-up item, please let us know.

CONCLUSION

So, things are shaping up for another fine Field Day. If you desire to participate and have not yet let us know, please send an email to John Fore, W6LD, JFore@wsgr.com or Mark Aaker, K6UFO, contesting@w6yx.stanford.edu. Also, please let us know if you have any preferences for FD activity (e.g., operating ssb or cw, etc.)