W6SF club members gathered first on Friday June 25^th to put up the club HexBeam at the start of FD2021.  Early Saturday Morning antenna preparations resumed soon after daybreak.  Charlie WB6NVB and his team put up the mast for the 40/80 Meter dipole.  Once ready to add the antenna, the halyard got snagged in the pully forcing us to bring the mast down after putting up the all-band dipole and verticals.  John NZ6Q and Paul N6KZW started setting up the radios and computers.  Erin KM6LDD kicked us off on 20M Digi while we others started on 15M and 10M – both bands somewhat open.  After operating a few hours we dropped the 40M tower to fix the antenna mount and then 40M took off.

Antennas for 2M & 440M weak signal CW-SSB work would follow and a trap vertical for the GOTA station.  We set-up operating positions facing the open air of the covered area and this allowed us to connect directly to the 100Ah batteries we had received from NorCal battery for the event. At almost 100lbs per battery they were not something to move around easily.  (Thank you Dave N6LHL for your repeated help with this).

This configuration also allowed for easy connection to all antennas and tri-plexer combiner/filters were used to allow multiple stations on the multi-band antennas. 

Mark W6SXA set up his solar charging system to keep batteries fully charged, but the 100Ah capacity per radio or set of radios appeared to easily be able to “go the distance” of a 24-hour event. 

Saturday morning we had received a call that ARRL Vice President Bob Vallio W6RGG and Pacific Division Director Kristen McIntyre K6WX would be making a visit.  The two arrived shortly after 3:00 PM Saturday afternoon landing at Kingdon Airport.  Thank you to Mark W6SXA who offered his services as Lyft Driver in his ‘retired’ military Utility Vehicle.  I’m sure while the drive was short, the conversation was great – sparked no doubt by the interesting and unique “taxi” complete with ham radios in his truck.  Bob and Kristen both did not escape the watchful eyes of our media guests Mike and Cindy. The weren’t on scene long before both were being interviewed as well for the soundings magazine article.

Into the evening on Saturday the bands were good.  12-year old Shane K5SML took over the 20-meter voice station, while Erin KM6LDD and John NZ6Q worked FT-8 on 40M and 15M. The “night shift” consisted of Erin KM6LDD who kept things busy both on digital as well as voice modes, Annie N6ACL on SSB and John NZ6Q mostly on CW.

Sunday morning again had good operating conditions and we continued to make QSOs right up to the 11AM stop for our station.  Take down commenced pretty quickly thereafter and by 1:00 PM things were pretty much cleaned up, put up and ready to pack up for the next contest. 

The 100Ah AGM Data Center batteries were offered for sale to club members at a cost of $100 each and they were all sold by the end of the event.  If you’re interested, contact Joe at Nor-Cal Battery in Stockton, tell him you’re a member of SDARC or ham operator and you can get more. They currently had several additional units available.  

Our W6SF CQP adventure as W6Q has won a CQP Plaque! W6Q was #1 in the Multi-Multi (Multi Operator, Multi Transmitter) Low Power Expedition category for CQP. W6Q was #6 overall in the Multi-Multi category as well with 139,755 points. The Contra Costs County team of N6O took the top honors for Multi Operator / Multi Transmitter (MM) regardless of power or expedition class.

Our teamwork also earned a new CQP record for MM Low Power Expedition in San Joaquin County.

This is the mark to shoot for next year to beat as W6SF !