Field Day 2003

Four of the area ham clubs were known to have held Field Day events in 2003. The event started around noon on Saturday, June 28th and ended around noon on Sunday June 29th.

Warning: This page may load slow due to the high graphic content (i.e. photos from field day at four locations). We've limited photos in size and quantity in an effort to minimize the slow down for our folks still using dial-up connections.

Weather for the 2003 Field Day event was mostly cloudy with some sprinkles in the area, mostly to the Northwest direction from San Antonio and some to the Southeast direction. Temperatures got into the mid-90's or higher, so shade was at a premium. It cooled down to the low 70's over night. Band conditions were not optimal, but reports were that 20 and 40 meter contacts did well. 10 meters and up were sort of slow. Check the individual listings below, or visit the club's website (If available) for more detailed info.

AARO

Here are some photos taken in 2003 by the webmaster during this year's Field Day Event.

Above is a group shot taken into the sun showing the pavillion where everybody congregated when not on the air.

Lars KD5MQX is working on 20 meters while his lovely assistant logs the calls.

Danny WA5KRP and Charlie WA3PAY (right) are discussing strategy for the evening BBQ coming up in a couple of hours.

Chris KC5PYG and Bob AD5NQ try to work 6 meters, but the band wasn't cooperating with them at the time.

SARC (Callsign W5SC) held their event in front of the Shavano Park Police Department, near the corner of DeZavala and NW Military on the NW side of San Antonio. They featured several home-built antennas using experimental plans that one of the operators found on the Internet or in an Antenna book. The BBQ arrived around 6pm and was still hot when we arrived there (again) around 7pm.

This is the Tent where everything was happening. SARC ran W5SC as Class "2A"

Note all the shade created by the area trees and the well decorated Tent/Shelter under which all the operators were operating.

Field Day was a big hit with the Shavano Park Police and EMS, or perhaps it was the free BBQ? We know for sure that they were not treating anyone for food poisoning or RF burns. :)

Happy operators working 20 and 40 meters inside the tent. SARC actually had 4 stations set up, but only operated 2 stations on the air simultaneously to keep their 2A status during Field Day.

Another shot showing radio operators and loggers at SARC's Field Day event. Plenty of relief operators standing by to take over, as you can see in the photo. Wonder if that dead possum hanging by its tail near the rear left corner had any particular meaning? Didn't see it on the table with the food, so perhaps we must remain puzzled until next year.

ROOST (Callsign W5ROS) held their event in their usual place, behind Harmony VFD 11125 Foster Rd. off Hwy 181 South. They also held a BBQ in the evening and visitors were welcomed. Members were asked to bring a side dish and their own cold drinks. Brisket and Chicken were furnished by the club, and cooked by the award winning Chris Koehler, K5VCR.
Here are some photos taken in 2003 by the webmaster during this year's Field Day Event.

ROOST President Jon Baker, AD5HR, is hard at work on 20 meters making contacts as fast as he can write them down. This was the first year to use the newly constructed ham shack located out behind Harmony VFD on Foster Road & Bexar County Sheriff Posse's Arena.

It was getting a bit dark by the time we made it out to ROOST's field day site, but the operators were going non-stop, trading off as one got tired of keying that mike and saying the same thing over and over, "This is Whiskey Five Sierra Oscar Mike, Five Alpha South Texas, Over."

Wonder if Hams can get that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from squeezing the microphone so much or keeping extensive contest logs? I know folks can get that from spending too much time on their computer keyboard writing websites or typing letters. :)

Tom Wynn (K0ZGC) is shown making contacts while Randy Lavender (N5RL) patiently waits for his turn at the microphone.

Kendall County Amateur Radio (KARS) held their event up in Boene at the Kendall County Fair Grounds. This site is on the edge of the East side of Boerne. The club has provided directions to their new site as follows: From the Main Street Bridge(River-Road//HWY 46 East) head East on HWY46 for about 1 mile going past Hurf Road on your right, then about another 1/4 mile on your right is the entrance to the Fair Grounds. The entrance is on HWY46. Their setup was under the pavilion area and also under the grandstands in the rodeo area.

For more info, please contact Richard W. McDaniel KC5OEG, at 830-755-9103 or via email at
bdmcdan@gvtc.com or their president, Jim Mastrogiovanni KK5RZ, at 830 336 2598 or via email at vmastro@gvtc.com.

One item of interest, they had networked all of their computers to a central logging server using DLink 802.11b wireless networking cards and DLink brand access points/routers. The networking experiment went very well thanks to the support from Kendall Computer's crew of Mark KE5GL and Matt KC5VII who donated the use of the equipment and their networking labor along with Richard Killman KD5ODJ and Tom Rosier N5TER who lent their networking expertise and labor. The persistence of this group was key to the success of the experiment.

While not a perfect deployment of wireless networking most of the problems were overcome by early afternoon on Saturday. The grandstand location was unreliable until the network was adjusted to poll the access points at twice the rate of the original setup.

The whole contest report was calculated and printed less than one hour after the end of the contest. The KARS information systems committee all ready has some proposed solutions for next year to make the network more robust.

Here are some photos from their Field Day event with captions written on the top of each photo or next to each one.

Jonathan KD5TEF (Left) and Richard K5OEG are setting up the 2m FM station at the Pavilion area prior to the start of Field Day. Some folks get the prime locations, note the signs on the doors immediately behind them? That is the Mens and Womens restrooms. Talk about convenience!

Mike W6WGE and Hubert KC5HRN (right) are waiting patiently for the10 meter band to open. Judging from other reports taken at other Field Day Events, we suspect they had to be very patient or persistent to make many contacts on that band that weekend.

Mark KE5GL is shown here setting up one of the wireless computer stations using 802.11B wireless equipment donated for use by the Kendall Computer Company.

Bob W5XW running CW on 20 meters. Note the poles around behind him? Bob was one of them running under the Grandstand with great shade, a good breeze, but poor 802.11b wireless connections.

There were 8 stations up. One of these was the GOTA station and one was the "free" vhf station. The contest count would be 6A since those 2 stations don't count as additional transmitters. This makes them the largest Field Day event out of the four clubs featured on this site. Congratulations!

Once more, KARS has proven they can field a significant number of Ham stations under semi-emergency conditions.