I have not been a member of the esteemed Amateur Radio community for very long. I got my Extra on Jan 8th, 2022.

Later that summer, I took the written test to become a Volunteer Examiner. I joined MCWA that summer after Field Day 2022.

In 2023, my niece in Indianpolis decided to get married on Field Day weekend. So there went any plans to participate

in any Field Day activities in 2023. I did take a field trip to Colorado in July 2023 and setup a solar powered station

at 10,000 feet in the Gunnison National Forest. That was a blast and I really enjoyed the trip and the experience.

If you are interested in more info on that trip, please see my ham webpage at www.w9lrg.com

This year I made plans to keep quite busy during Saturday and Sunday June 22 & 23rd for Field Day. On Saturday, Joanne K9JKM

and Bob KD9IDD put together what it needs to have license testing in the morning June 22nd before on air activities started.

Of course, I volunteered to help out their efforts.

But the rest of Field Day was set aside for myself to run a class 1E station on solar power from my deck at home. I learned

alot from that experience and will add it to my personal knowledgebase.

I put up a canopy and a folding table & chair. Put my ICOM IC-7300 on the table, along with my laptop. On the deck next

to the table was my solar panel and battery box. I put up a 40m EFHW antenna(the kit ARRL sells on their webstore).

And off I went!

I was chasing phone contacts starting out. But soon I was chasing FT8/FT4 on 40 and 20 meters. And I am still

kicking myself, as I just missed out on a contact with W1AW. There are lessons to be learned out there and that was a big one.

My first QSO was on Saturday at 18:07 UTC(13:07 CDT) phone. After 9 QSO's on 40m SSB, I switched over to FT8 and started to

scan other bands. I found the most activity on 40m and 20m, both phone & FT8/4. Maybe my antenna or maybe just propagation,

but that is where I was most productive. At 00:27 UTC (7:27pm CDT), the wind started increasing and the weather warnings were

starting to pop. I decided to quit for the day and broke down my station to prevent water and lightening damage.

On Sunday morning, I found out we got 3.9 inches of rain at my QTH from the overnight. Things were kinda wet but all was safe.

I started off wiping down my canopy brackets(I took the covering off to prevent wind damage) and get setup for day.

At 12:55 UTC(07:55CDT), I made my first QSO on 20 meters and started working the bands and where ever I could find traffic to

work. I did find K9RN on FT4 Sunday morning. They were up and at it early after all the rain overnight!

I continued working FT8 & FT4 and phone until 18:52UTC(13:52 CDT) and took a short break and by the time I got back, I was

unable to quickly find any more Field Day traffic. I decided to break down my station and call it a sucessfull weekend.

I have 120 QSO's logged total with 56 phone and 64 digital contacts made over about 12.5 hrs of on duty time for a single operator.

Still working on points and other breakdowns.

Preliminary Total Score: 728

Sections worked:

43 of 71 US Sections

1 of 14 Canada Sections