Field Day 2025

W4BXC was on the air for another backyard Field Day, this time from Stan’s (WA4BXC) back yard in Ooltewah, TN. This year we were operating as 1E TN. Present for Field day were Stan WA4BXC, Connie NR4CB, and Eugene AB4UG. We had several friends show up, including one of the neighbours, Steve KQ4SMI, who got on the air for his very first Field Day. In between operating stints, there were breaks around the fire pit for roasting hot dogs, marshmallows, and making s’mores.

W4BXC Field Day operating position
W4BXC Field Day operating position
W4BXC Field Day operating position
W4BXC Field Day operating position
Solar panel used to charge the batteries used for Field Day. The panel consists of four smaller panels and is propped up on a hand truck to face the sun.
Solar panel used to charge the batteries, with manual sun-tracking.

The antenna was put up between two large trees with the help of Stan’s “air cannon”. It did a pretty good job getting the ends of the antenna up to a decent height, although overall antenna height was a bit limited due to the presence of other wire antennas. The center of the dipole ended up about 20 feet in the air. Good enough that the radio’s tuner didn’t complain on the 40m, 20m, 10m, and 6m bands.

Dipole antenna suspended in the air
Dipole antenna suspended in the air
Air gun constructed from white PVC pipe used to hang the antenna in the air
Air gun constructed from white PVC pipe used to hang the antenna in the air

Band conditions were decent. Not the greatest, but not awful. Propagation seemed to disappear in the late afternoon/early evening, but then improved later into the evening. Bands on Sunday morning were pretty good, but then faded a few hours before noon and didn’t improve much the rest of the day.

AB4UG operating the W4BXC Field Day station
Solar panels getting some sun
Field Day display table
Ham, the W4BXC mascot
AB4UG operating the W4BXC Field Day station in the evening

Operations were interrupted briefly for a couple hours when thunderstorms rolled in late Saturday afternoon. Thankfully the really heavy rain moved around us instead of over us and we only got rained on a little bit. Wouldn’t be Field Day without thunderstorms.

For logging, not1mm was used instead of the usual N1MM+ that has been used previously. It does a pretty good job at replicating most of the features that makes N1MM+ a good program for contest logging, but is Python based and runs well under Linux.

Field Day wrapped up with 123 contacts, 21 more than last year. Contacts were made mostly on 40m and 20m, with a handful on 10m. The radio was powered entirely on battery power (a 100 Ah LiFePO) that had been charged with solar power, which qualified us for the natural power bonus (100 points). The battery had no problems keeping the radio going at 100 W, and I don’t think we made much of a dent in the battery’s charged capacity.

Field Day 2025

BandQSOs
781
1436
286
Total123
Field Day QSO summary

Underground antennas

While researching the W8NYY call sign written in the 1937 ARRL Handbook I picked up, I came across a NOARS (Northern Ohio Amateur Radio Society) newsletter from March 2019 with a column by W8GWD answering a question about underground antennas. In it, he references an article from a March 1948 QST (a typo in the newsletter gives it as May 1948) by Paul Cornell/W8EFW who wrote about his investigations into rumours of buried antennas. W8EFW related a conversation with W8NYY who worked W8RJF, who was using an underground antenna

One day, while having lunch with W8NYY at Akron, Ohio, Lloyd told me that he had worked W8RJF in Cleveland, on 10, and that RJF mentioned that his antenna was buried in the ground.”

Underground Antennas: Are they fact or fiction? – Paul Cornell W8EFW March 1948 QST

W8EFW goes on to talk about meeting W8RJF to learn more about his underground antenna: a doublet fed through some garden hose and buried 4-5 feet underground.

An editor’s footnote in W8EFW’s article mentions a letter in the May 1925 QST where 5Rx/5XAY describes using a wire antenna buried one foot underground and operating on 80, 50, and 40m.

I’ve heard of antennas on the ground (such as a BOG/Beverage On Ground) but the idea of underground antennas is a new one to me. Apparently some have been used on the 2200 and 630m bands. Now I’m intrigued. I need to dig into this some more.

1937 ARRL Handbook

A 1937 ARRL Handbook with a distinctive orange cover, that I picked up at Hamvention 2025, is now part of the collection. It’s in relatively decent shape for its age, although the cover has become unglued from the spine, so I’ll need to glue it back on at some point.

Front cover of the 1937 edition of the ARRL Radio Amateur's Handbook

The call sign W8NYY is written on the front cover, and on the inside front page is the former owner’s name and call sign, Lloyd H. Miller W8NYY.

A quick Google search turns up a 2-Jun-1978 obituary from the Akron Beacon Journal for Mr. Miller and mentions he was a ham radio operator (W8NYY).

Obituary for Lloyd H. Miller (W8NYY) from Akron Beacon Journal 02-Jun-1978. Text of the obituary follows. Lloyd H. MIller, 79, of 9 Wilpark dr., died June 1 at Akron City Hospital. He was born in Akron and was a life resident of the area. Mr. Miller retired in 1966 from Goodyear Aerospace with 13 years service. He was a ham radio operator (W8NYY) and had been a member of various amature (sic) radio clubs. He is survived by wife, Helen; daughters, Miss Jean Miller, of Akron, Mrs. "Chick" (Nancy) Watkins, Cuyahoga Falls; 2 grandsons, David and Scott Watkins. Funeral services Saturday 1 PM from the Hopkins Funeral Home, 547 Canton rd., Akron, Dr. Russel AJones officiating. Burial Holy Cross Cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home 7 to 9 PM Friday.

A short blurb in the June 1937 QST talks about a 160m “round-table QSO party” he organized.

On Easter morning, 1937, fifty-two ‘phone stations in thirty states, coast-to-coast, all operating on frequencies between 1955 and 1965 kcs., took part in a “round table’’ QSO party, organized by Lloyd Miller, W8NYY, O.P.S., Akron, Ohio. The stations were selected in advance as con­sistent at W8NYY and were invited by card to participate. Starting at 2 a.m., EST, W8NYY called the roll in numerical and alphabetical order. Each station then called the Round Table for one minute while the rest listened, and after the round each station reported the other stations heard, with signal reports. The party lasted until 6:20 a.m., and a “good time was had by all.” Souvenir QSL’s were sent to all participants.

In a December 1942 QST article, he’s listed as a WERS operator in Barberton OH.

Sounds like Mr. Miller was a fairly active and involved amateur radio operator.

I think it’s always neat to get my hands on stuff like this and be able to find out a little bit about their owners. I wonder what other journeys this book has had between being owned by Mr. Miller and when it entered my collection.

On the air for SKYWARN Recognition Day 2024

I had the 7-10 AM shift with Tom AJ4UQ at the NWS Charleston office for SKYWARN Recognition Day 2024. Tom was already there when I arrived, and mentioned the previous shift was having SWR issues with the HF radio and antenna. Stations were really quiet and they weren’t able to make any HF contacts.

The HF antenna is a ground mounted Butternut vertical. After the sun came up a little more, we went to check out the antenna to see if we could figure out what was going on. Didn’t take long to find the problem.

Broken feed line connection at the base of a ground mounted vertical antenna.

The feed line connection to the antenna had corroded away and was completely broken off. It was a pretty cold day and we didn’t have any tools, so the repair will have to wait for a warmer day.

Without HF, all we had were the VHF DMR and FM radios so we threw out the WX4CHS call periodically and managed a couple dozen or so contacts from across the state through the statewide linked repeaters over the three hours we were there.

The staff at the NWS Charleston office are great, welcoming, and appreciative of the amateur radio operators that volunteer there. Always a fun time operating there.