Heated VHF field day 2023
As always, we all looked forward to Field Day, this time especially my middle daughter, but…
But the daughter started the camp on the first day of the vacation, so she didn't go anywhere. But three operators could not participate in the event for various reasons… There were only five of us three days before the race. And we planned that for 2m, 70cm and premiere also 23cm. So we immediately rejected the 23 and called two people from Banskobystrica to help with 70cm, who showed interest.
On Saturday morning after nine o'clock we set off from Zvolen in the direction Drawing. It was pleasant on the hill, it was not warm, it was pleasantly windy and above all it didn't rain. We quickly set up the tent, antennas for 2m and the whole 70. All this only in the heel. Subsequently, we sweated a bit with the 2m mast, which had to go down a few times before the sale. Cyro OM7AAC in the meantime, he started cooking goulash as usual. Tight, as we finished the antenna at half past three, it started to rain. I'm bullshitting. It literally started pouring. A real summer cloudburst, storm like thunder. Sometimes with nice hail. After an hour, it all ran out and left somewhere in the direction of Poľana, and we could continue. On the spot, where we had pitched a tent, however, there was even 20 cm of water on the meadow in places.
Lúka simply couldn't drink it, since we needed to start competing, we had to unstake the entire tent and move it 5m to a drier place. Then we had stew and connected the 2m workplace. Therefore, the first connection on 2m is in the log up to 17:12. We were just an hour late.
Around 4 p.m., reinforcements for 70 cm also arrived. Miro OM7AMA and Milan OM7AMV set up their van about 60m north of the 2m tent. They already had antennas, they only stretched the electricity, they turned on the radio and almost immediately we were making QSOs on the 70 cm band as well.
Connections were continuously increasing at both workplaces. But it was felt, that we are few fresh operators on the two bands. In the evening, we finally deployed Petra's secret weapon OM6PR with Milo OM6MH on 2m. Because Peter is the only one of us who controls CW.
Toward the end of the race, as usual, we started packing earlier, to be home sooner. The guys first dropped 70cm, reinforcements from BB went home. Then the guys threw down the tent, while I was still broadcasting on 2m, because at least 90.000 was about to fall. It was missing 10 connection, after that 7, after that 4, after that 2, until I finally broke it and added something extra in the bolt itself 90.000.
In conclusion, that's all about the course of the race. I rate the conditions as better than standard. At 2m, we wanted as always 100.000 points. The shampoo was ready, but 10.000 points, which is about our average 30 We just missed the QSO. Maybe that watch was missing at the start of the race, and maybe even more operator forces were missing. Possibly both. That's how it flew.
A few words 70cm. OM7AMA and OM7AMV were with us for the first time and helped us a lot. If it weren't for them, the result at 70 cm would not be worth talking about. Thus, it is slightly weaker than a year ago. But I went 70 cm 😊.
Therefore, we evaluate the event as successful. Apart from the weather at the beginning, everything went well, nothing went wrong and we rate the result as decent considering the participation.
We are already looking forward to September's VKV record day. Let yourself be surprised from where.
Greetings from the OM4C contest team: OM6CI, OM6MH, OM6PR, OM7AAC, OM7AMA, OM7AMV a OM7KW.
73 Števo OM7KW
