Field Day 2021

This was the second year of Field Day in the Age of COVID-19. I planned to operate as 1D outside, but the threatening skies convinced me to participate instead as 1E inside. It was a new experience.

Running the FT-891 off a 20 Ah LiFePo4 battery at my usual operating position in the shack worked quite well, and led to a new and deeper appreciation of the '891's capabilities. It really is a remarkable radio. 

Working Field Day from the shack was enjoyable. Propagation was reasonable and I bettered my score from last year. The mosquitoes were not missed one bit. 

That said, I hope next year we can get back to a more traditional Field Day. Radio alone is fun, but radio together is great.

Field Day 2020

This year was a strange reintroduction to Field Day, being the first FD event I've participated in since roughly 1985. COVID-19 prevented a group outing so I went it alone with a Yaesu FT-891, Wolf River Coils telescoping vertical (Sunday I used a MyAntennas EFLW), and 20Ah LiFePo4 battery.

Despite the sub-optimal band conditions, challenging weather, and lack of company, it was still a blast. I operated SSB to keep it simple this year. After giving up on 20m QRP Saturday afternoon and switching to 40m and 100 watts, I racked up a mediocre 50+ QSOs while marveling at the performance of the FT-891. The digital noise reduction and variable bandwidth filters made the difference between QSO and no-QSO many times. It's a nice rig.

Other random thoughts on FD-2020:  

• Very few on air spats or snarky comments heard.
• There were lots of polite "thank you" and "good luck in the contest" comments peppered into exchanges. 
• I heard a goodly amount of slow and medium speed code, helpful for people building (and rebuilding) their CW skills.
  

Other than limited propagation and the usual poorly tuned amplifiers producing QRM on nearby frequencies, the event was enjoyable. Hopefully next year we can deploy in groups.