Here is a very nice summary of our Field Day activities at the Coastal Amateur Radio Society as taken from our club newsletter......
After breakfast at Sunnyside Up, CARS members assembled at Southside Fire Department Station 1 on White Bluff Rd. at 8:00 AM to begin setting up for Field Day. As the temperatures and humidity rose, so did the antennas: A hex beam for 20 meters, dipoles for 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters, a 6 meter yagi, a military HF vertical, and a 2 meter/70 cm satellite antenna. We operated as a 5A station using the club call sign W4LHS. Radios were provided by various club members with a multi band setup on Philip’s military radio, dedicated stations for 80, 40, and 20 meters, and a 10/15 meter station. In addition to the HF stations, Ralph Quinn, W4REQ set up a 6 meter station and Dan Scott, KF4MND set up a satellite station. In addition to the antennas and radios, a wireless network was set up and logging software was used on the 80, 40, and 20 meter stations. That made logging the busiest of the 5 stations much easier. The recently renovated and improved club station, which is located at the fire station, was used for our Get on the Air (GOTA) Station as K4S on 10, 15, and 20 meters as well as 2 meters and 70cm. Many
thanks to those who showed up early to get the antennas in the air and the stations set up, without their hard work; the rest of Field Day would not have been possible. Field Day was a success. There were 45 total attendees throughout the weekend, with 25 staying for dinner on
Saturday evening. Propagation may not have been cooperative, our score may not have been high but we had fun, and that is the key thing. During Field Day, several CARS members made their first HF contacts and prospective hams were introduced to the hobby with the opportunity to get on the air. With the exception of dinner time, there were stations active for the duration, even over the "midnight shift." In fact, many 40 and 80 meter contacts were made in the late night and early morning hours. During the daytime, 10 meters and 6 meters didn’t decide to
cooperate with us, but 15 and 20 meters did. 302 contacts were made, 46 of which were CW contacts. The GOTA station contributed a further 35 contacts for a total of 337. After the score was tabulated, we had 1290 bonus points and 778 points from contacts. Field Day was also a success away from the radios. Saturday morning, in addition to station preparation also saw a VE session and an introduction to operating class. The VE session resulted in one new Technician Class operator, a
General Class operator who passed the Technician and General exams at the same session, and an Extra Class upgrade. Jack Beaty, Jr. earned his Technician Class license and Edward Meyers passed the Technician and General tests, earning his General Class license. Jack Beaty, Sr., KI4QAP earned his Extra Class license. Jere Conan, KT4ZB conducted the HF Operating and Radio Set up class prior to the beginning of operations to help new operators and those new to HF get a good start on Field Day and HF operations in general. Field Day brought two new CARS
members: Joe Carroll, AG4BO and Jack Beaty, Sr., KI4QAP. The Field Day dinner not only paid for itself, but also brought a small profit; $125 was taken in to cover the cost of $98. The after dinner auction raised $112.
I set up a simple station at the Southside Baptist Church 4th of July Community Picnic and Fireworks Display over the weekend. Kind of a last minute idea but thought it might be fun to operate a little since I would be outdoors most of the day. I borrowed Mac-KF4LMTs battery and G5RV Jr. antenna and found a good spot to setup in right field of one of the ball parks over there at Paulsen Sports Complex where we were having the picnic. I put up a 12 x 12 canopy and setup my station on a small table that is perfect for events like this. I brought along my Yaesu FT-857D and my LDG Z-11 Pro tuner. In no time I had the radio and tuner connected to the battery thru my RigRunner power panel. Next step was to get the antenna up in the air. I solicited the help of Charles Cobb, one of my friends from church. We used the magic softball and a spool of chaulk line. Charles flung the ball up and was able to snag one of the foot pegs on the outfield light post. Did the same on the other side and tied everything off nicely. Got it up about 30 feet. Took just about 15 minutes. Hooked the feedline to the tuner and boom, I'm on the air. Operated for about an hour before my wife called me over to help with the picnic. My job was to cut up 30 watermelons! Dang, that's alot of watermelon. It took me about 3 hours till we ran out. Then I was able to clean up and get back over to the radio station. I operated right on thru the fireworks display and even had the opportunity to explain HAM radio to a bunch of my friends and my daughters friends. After the fireworks ended I broke down the station and headed to the house. Sure was fun. The simpler the better when operating an event like that.
Well, we made another trip out to the WVAN Transmitter site in Pembroke this afternoon to try and determine why the KJ4GGV D-Star gateway can be seen as active on the Internet but not allow for any linking. I picked up Mac-KF4LMT and we met Bob-KI4YRY and Larry-W4RA at the site around 1630. I connected the laptop to the router to double check all of our port forwarding settings to the gateway and found everything was just fine. However, I noticed that on the bottom of the page there are three tabs.....ADD, SAVE, APPLY. Well, I quickly determined that when we were out there last Friday I clicked SAVE but never did click APPLY. So all the setting were correct but I hadn't applied them to the active config of the router. Geez. And I'm in the technology business! Of course, after I clicked APPLY and we got someone to trigger the link to the reflector, boom we were good to go. Gateway connectivity back up and running! Mac had his IC-91AD with him and was able to verify the connection to the reflector. I'm glad it was a simple fix. Now let's see how long things continue to run. I think we're in good shape now. I sure appreciate the STARS Club (of which I am a proud member) for hosting and maintaining this D-Star system. 
We had a really great work day at our club station at the Southside Fire Station on Saturday, May 30. We began arriving at about 0800 and quickly began to plan out what needed to be done. Our primary goal for the day was to get the antenna tower refurbished and back in good working order. First order of business was to get the tower lowered so we could better inspect everything. Kevin-WD0GFG climbed the tower to the roofline and and unbolted the bracket holding the tower to the building. We installed a pulley on the bracket and used it to secure a line to the trailer hitch on my truck. This made us feel a little safer as we began to lower the tilt over tower since no one really knew how much it weighs. Lowering went fine and we rested the tower on a ladder so the HF beam antenna would not lay on the ground. With the tower in this position we began to go to work. In summary we replaced the rotor and it's control cable, replaced the old 2 meter antenna with a new Diamond dual bander, replaced the feedline to the HF and the VHF/UHF antennas, replaced the wire cable that is used to crank the tower up, replaced several pulleys, U-bolts, Eye-bolts, rusted nuts and bolts, and installed three new pulleys with line for hoisting wire antennas. We also installed a new ground wire from the radio room out to the ground rods and tower. Wow, we got a lot done. With everything installed and secure, we tilted the tower back up in place and secured it to the bracket and locked everything down. We oriented the HF beam to North and calibrated the rotor control to match. Paul-KJ4FAV climbed the tower and locked the antenna shaft in place and then Kevin tested the rotor and control. Good to go. We finished the tower work around 1400 or so. It took about 11 of us six hours to do but it was well worth it and we now have a refurbished and functional system. Awesome stuff!
Had a great time at the Beaufort Airshow today. Lorie, Jackson, Lorie's sister Cyndi, and I got to the air station at about noon today. Lorie and Cyndi went their own way and I made my way over to meet up with Ryan-AJ4MY and his family. Jackson had one of our FRS radios so we could stay in touch. I "opened up" the VX-7R a few weeks back so I could transmit on that band instead of having to carry an FRS. Ryan and I had been in touch on simplex as we were on our way in. Spent and few minutes with him and his family before they left then I made my way around to check out all of the static display aircraft. I broke out the Pro-96 scanner and the VX-7R to see if I could hear any comms on the frequencies that I got from the Monitoring Times Airshow Guide. Really didn't hear anything. Tried to scan around and find the "Air Boss" frequency but no luck again. So I began to search for the Air Boss station. Found it but it was inside the gated area. Dang. I had hoped to ask one of them what freqs they were using like Dan and I did at the Vidalia Air Show a few weeks back. Couldn't get close enough to ask anyone. Bummer. So I just grabbed a bite to eat and enjoyed the show until 3:00pm when the Blue Angels show began. As I was getting the radios ready, another HAM spotted me and came over to chat. It was Wally Calhoun-KI4NXV from Rincon. We had never met before but of course we know alot of the same people. Wally is in in the Georgia Air Guard and works with the 165th in Savannah. So I tuned the scanner to the Blue Angel frequencies and was able to listen to the whole show! I listened the the main formation on the Pro-96 and the Solo aircraft on the VX-7R. Wow, it really adds alot to the show to be able to hear the pilots communicate. The were using Military band UHF for both freqs. After the show I put out a call to Jackson on the FRS channel and we hooked back up for the walk back to the truck. We spent the next 1.5 hours trying to get off the base with thousands of others. I put out a call on the local Beaufort repeater to find out if anyone had an idea why it might be taking so long. Billy-KE4CEV came back and said there had been a vehicle rollover that was causing a delay. So I chatted with him for a while during the wait. I was also monitoring the Beaufort County trunking system on the Pro-96.
Finally got my first contact to New Zealand tonight. Talked to Al, ZL1BD just north of Hamilton on 20 meters, 14.271. Good conditions tonight. I had him at a 57 and he had me at a 55.
