Field Day on Woodside

For this year’s annual Field Day event Ralph and I decided we would operate from the upper flank of Mount Woodside. We had scoped out a location earlier in the year and had planned our adventure for spending much of a day on the slope operating. So as the day arrived we carefully watched the weather and it looked reasonable so once Ralph arrived at my home the morning of the event,  we loaded a few last items into the truck and set off. First for coffee and then fuel. We were making good time on the road until the last kilometer! Just shy of where we would turn off the highway for the forestry road we were stopped in a line of vehicles waiting our turn to use a single lane past a paving operation on the highway. We had so little to go and the delay seems interminable. After around a 10 minute delay it was finally our turn to move.

A short distance along the new pavement we made our turn off onto the forestry road. We switched the truck over to 4x4 mode and continued up the road. It was a dull morning and though not raining it did seem dreary. We quickly ascended the early section of road and soon we encountered the one vehicle we met on the way in it was a pickup towing a boat! It seemed odd to see a boat up here on the top of a mountain but I guess Stacey Lake is just big enough that floating in its middle would help with fishing. At the 500m level we entered the first wisps of cloud. As we climbed the cloud got thicker and more solid.

Continuing to the side road we would be taking to the final site, we encountered no other persons on the road. Once on the short spur we descended to the spot we had planned and then drove past to drop off the generator we would be using.  We quickly reached the spot to drop it off and now we had to turn-a-round, we had a very narrow area in which to turn the truck. It took quite a few reverses to complete but the truck stayed on the road and was eventually facing the right direction. We then unloaded the generator – a 4KVA unit so it took two of us. After driving back to our operating location, we parked and began set up.

First item up was our day tent, with the cloud we were in it was less needed than in the hot sun but we got it set up and a table. Next came the antenna. For today’s adventure we opted to start with my 40m OCF antenna strung between some trees on the slope above us. This took us around 20 minutes to get in the air. Though the wire wasn’t that high off the ground being on a long slope would make the effective height much higher. Next came setting up the KX3 and amp. We hauled out Ralph’s big battery and powered the radio and were immediately hearing stations. I put out a call, as it was now around 11:30 and the contest portion was underway, and quickly got a response. So we knew the setup was working.

Next I set up my 2m radio with my arrow yagi on a 16 foot mast. Shortly after getting it operating I had a 2m contact in log. We continued operating for about an hour and a bit and decided it was tie for a break and to get the generator going. Ralph and I walked out to the generator and tried to fire it up but it wouldn’t start after numerous pulls and words we decided to leave it for now and we returned to the tent. I heated some water with my portable stove and we had some coffee to warm up in the damp cloud. The cloud was staying with us, we had hoped it would burn off quickly but so far it was staying.