My first ever field day is over............

The Saturday afternoon sky

Not sure why but I have never taken part in any field day, I can remember there have been some years were I was busy. I have often seen field day setups as I drove from here to there but as I said I have never been involved in one. Well 2013 field day was my first I was not with a group from a club but did it on my own. Not because I'm not into clubs but was not sure if this year I would be busy doing other things as Julie's

Saturdays operating position

relatives are in from England. It turned out I was able to get some time in on Saturday and Sunday and I had a blast. I was operating search and pounce and was using my KX3 on battery power only. I did bring along my spare battery but did not have to use it either day. My antenna was a mobile whip and I stayed on 20m for the contest. I was reading on twitter how 10m and 15m were dead. Funny thing too I was also reading other twitter posts of how this was a field day with very little action on the bands. I found things to be very busy and I was always able to make a contact....well hear them but maybe not make the contact. It sure was a change to not have my PC with me during a contest. I was hand writing my log and also having to run down my contact list to see if I have worked the station already. I did get a few "worked B4" but that was due to the fact I was not able to see them in my log sheets. At the start of the contest I was getting asked to repeat my category almost every contact!! That told me I was for sure messing something up, turns out I was

Sundays spot...lunch time

Sundays weather

sending B1 and not 1B as a category....sorry to all those who I threw off at the start of the contest. Once I got the exchange sorted out all was going very well. The weather on Saturday was touch and go there was very severe weather clouds moving overhead all the time. I must say for the time I was out on Saturday I did not have rain at all. On Sunday it was once again very humid and HOT HOT!! The nice thing about Sunday was the bad weather seemed to had taken a good long break. On Sunday I went to a different spot, it was a nice park just north of me. I did have some folks stop by to see what I was up too but none hung around to long. When the contest was over I was on the air for only a total of 4 hours and I made 50 contacts CW only. I was operating at 4 watts on the internal batteries of the KX3.  I had a nice time and was able to give the Elecraft KX3 a good workout. So as I said this was my first ever Field day and I will for sure be putting this contest in the calender for next year.