Presidents Message – July 2019
The Desert RATS ARC just had one of the best Field Days. About 25 RATS participated over the 2-day event at Hot Purple Energy. Hot Purple pretty much gave us the keys to the place. We erected 3 antennas and set up 3 HF stations. Two stations operated digital modes, FT-8 and some PSK-31 and the other station operated SSB and some CW.
Hot Purple Energy also supplied us with a trailer that was loaded to the teeth with solar panels and batteries. The large inverter supplied our transmitters with 120 VAC for the length of the event, 24 hours, day and night, which gives us bonus points. I have not tallied up all of our points yet, but we made about 350 contacts during the event. Figuring a guess with all of our bonus points for youth, solar, served agencies, power and mode multipliers, I think we did pretty well.
There was lots of food and coffee supplied. We had use of their coffee pots and kitchen for our meals and lots of AC to keep us cool. There were plenty of opportunities to learn at Field Day as well. There were several sessions of the use of FT-8 and Earl KJ6DQR and Dale WA6MZW set up an AREDN Mesh Network demo with live cameras of our operation going out over the mesh and a live camera feed from atop Edom Hill for us to see. At the end of the day, Hot Purple Energy donated 2 large solar panels to the Desert RATS for the use as a backup system to our Edom Hill 220 machine.
Thanks again to Hot Purple Energy and all of the RATS board members and those that showed up to set up the antennas (and tear down) and those who volunteered to work all of the hours it took to make this happen. You are the ones that make this club what it is.
Glenn WB6RLC
