CARS has set up an operating day at the club station, WA4USN, on board the USS Yorktown for this year’s ARRL Rookie Roundup (SSB). For Rookie Roundup purposes, a Rookie is someone who was licensed in the current year, or within the past 2 years (2013, 2014, or 2015). If you’re a rookie or new ham and want to experience the HF side of amateur radio or just want to operate from the club station (it’s a pretty neat place to play radio from), this is your chance!
The club room will be open starting at 1PM, April 19. Rookie Roundup starts at 2PM EDT and goes to 759PM EDT (1800 – 2359 UTC). If you’re interested, drop me a note and I’ll put you in touch with the proper people.
To make better use of the CARS club room on the USS Yorktown, Jim/KK4REM has taken on the task of organizing monthly operating days open to any club members. Being on the Charleston Harbour and with an HF antenna at a pretty decent height over salt water, the ship is usually a pretty good place to operate from.
There are several purposes for the operating days:
Teach new hams proper operating procedures
Let people who might not normally use HF experience HF operations
Put the club equipment to use
I was able to make it to today’s operating day, and with the club’s laptops, the plan was to do some digital work as well. By the time I arrived at the club room, there were a few people already playing on the radio making some contacts on 20m. One of the contacts even included someone who served on the USS Yorktown back in the 50s.
Operating in the WA4USN club room on the USS Yorktown
After a few contacts, the Signalink was hooked up and a couple people were introduced to some of the digital modes. Did a little bit of PSK and some RTTY. I was busy with other things so I don’t know if any contacts were made.
While they were playing radio, I was showing my sound card interface to Rick/N8BKN and discussing the possibility of maybe making it a build project for the club. Bryce/K4LXF showed up a little later and from him I learned a little more about the repeaters that the club maintains.
I also got the opportunity to see the WA4USN repeater room., located a couple decks below the top of the Yorktown’s island. There’s not too much in there: the 2m repeater, a repeater controller and the WA4USN-5 APRS digipeater.
WA4USN APRS digipeater
WA4USN APRS digipeater
One of these days I might have to help maintain these repeaters.
Another Field Day is coming up in a couple of weeks and once again I’ll be playing radio with fellow WA4USN club members on the USS Yorktown with CARS. I hope to spend a little more time operating this year.
I’ll also be paying closer attention to the generator and battery hook ups to learn how to set up the rig in the shack on portable power. Hopefully the weather is nice and the propagation is good.
Decent weather, no rain and partly overcast skies kept Field Day today from being too sweltering hot and made operating tolerable. Spent the bulk of today logging, and got on the radio for the last hour of Field Day to make a few more contacts. The club managed to get a little over 500 contacts on the SSB station and I think about 80 or so CW contacts.
I was even hearing a little bit of activity on 6m through my HT, which is something I practically never hear around here. I couldn’t make out much of anything, but I was able to tell that it was Field Day activity. No idea where it was coming from though.
Having a little more radio experience under my belt made this Field Day a more enjoyable experience than last year (not that I didn’t have a good time last year). Knowing a little more about what’s going on really helps and I feel like I was able to make more of a contribution this year.
Looking forward to Field Day next year.
A view of the Charleston peninsula and Charleston harbour from the USS Yorktown hangar deck
A view of the Ravenel bridge and the Charleston harbour from the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown
Had a most excellent time at Field Day yesterday on board the USS Yorktown with CARS. I was put in charge of IT, which meant setting up the two laptops and a little local wifi network so that they could communicate and share a log file.
At 1800UTC (2PM EDT), the chaos the activity started. I spent the first few hours in seek and pounce mode (S&P), tuning around 40m at first and then moving up to 20 and then 15m. Was able to rack up a bunch of contacts, but it wasn’t easy. Thunderstorms to the southwest and in Georgia were causing static crashes because of the lightning. I’d be trying to work some strong stations, then 20-30db of noise would just wipe everything out on the frequency for a second or two. That went on for a few more hours, and then the rest of the evening was relatively clear. Then the problem went back to trying to pick out the Field Day exchange with neighbouring stations or groups of Boy Scouts stomping by behind us drowning everything out (the usual chaos).
I stayed on the Yorktown until around 10ish. A few other club members operated and got some pile ups going. I spent some time hanging out at the CW and digital station, taking photos and helping out with the logging on the phone station.
Field Day 2013
Field Day on the Yorktown offers a great view of the harbour and the Charleston penninsula while we’re operating.
Field Day 2013
This is the CW and digital station in action. Last year the CW station was set up in the club communications trailer out on the pier, but didn’t work out so well there, so it was brought up to the ship this time. The digital station was having a similar problem with noisy bands that we were having on the phone station so I don’t think there were too many contacts being made there.
Field Day 2013 CW/digital station
Back for more Field Day fun today until 1800Z (2PM EDT) and then breaking everything down.
If you’re on the air for Field Day today, listen out for WA4USN. It might be me that’s operating!
