So how was YOUR Field Day? In West Virginia, it had one radio operator flying high, as we hear from Jen DeSalvo, W9TXJ.
JEN: The East River Amateur Radio Club in Bluefield, West Virginia, picked quite the location for this year's Field Day.
DAVE: We chose the local municipal airport, Mercer County Airport, to be our venue.
JEN: President Dave Lester, N8VFR, said it was in a nice area outside of the airfield where they set up pop-ups and GOTA. As the event was winding down Sunday, and Dave was starting to think about packing up, club member and pilot, Jay Belt, K8CTI…
DAVE ....looked at me and said “let's go get on HF, up in the air.” And of course, I'm not going to say no.
JEN: Jay had put together a station, an H-F rig…
DAVE … just 20 meters. It was a quarter wave end-fed, and he had that ran from wing to tail.
JEN: Being in the air, Dave was easily getting through pile-ups.
DAVE I noticed immediately that I didn't have to turn the VFO very much at all to hear stations. You know, I guess elevation. I was just hearing everything!
JEN: They used Jay’s callsign in the air. Toward the end of the flight, Dave found THE frequency…
DAVE: …and just started calling CQ.
SOUND CLIP: “CQ Field Day – Aeronautical Mobile Station Kilo Eight Charlie Tango India”
JEN: There were some challenges. The logistics of logging and…
DAVE: ...The radio and the tuner were were screwed to this board, and I was having to balance it between my knees because there's nowhere in the plane to mount the thing.
JEN: It was a total of 39 minutes from takeoff to landing. During that time, Dave snagged eleven contacts.
It wasn’t just the aircraft on the air which made the club’s Field Day successful.
DAVE: I was completely blown away and overwhelmed by the public reaction to our Field Day. They just came out of nowhere.
JEN: There were young adults in their twenties, an amateur extra who came to GOTA for his very first time, and several people sign up for the club’s exams.
DAVE: It was definitely a positive impact on the community. And, you know, the, I guess being at the airport was, was kind of a draw.
JEN: I’d say.
SOUND CLIP: "CQ Field Day Aeronautical Station Mobile!"
