Art and Dave putting the rotator on the tower	Art tightening the rotator bolts	Note how the antenna stand can tilt to one side to permit working on the top
Almost done putting up the tent	Art & Tim securing the boom in the rotor	Attaching the rotator control cables
Adjusting the rotator position on the tower	Securing cables with the Carasat tent in the back with the green top	Don checking the laptop under a makeshift hood to keep off sunlight
Don's 2.2 gig dish for AO-40	Art adding the 2 meter yagi to the boom	Dave and Art working on replacing the connector on 2 meter antenna cable
Cable connector repair in the field	The repair continues	Testing the repaired cable
Don and Art Saturday morning before Field Day starts at 2 pm	Screen shot of the Unitrac program on laptop	Another view to see the Unitrac program -- it was difficult to see the screen in bright daylight
Rich getting our first CW contact Saturday	Rich on the keyer	Ben snagging 10 cw contacts on Sunday morning
Ben on cw	Art at the end of a long day during takedown

Report by Ed N2EC

 At Field Day (FD) 2003 the propagation on the HF bands was not optimal because of the sun spot cycle, but it was not a problem for working the AO-40 satellite. We concentrated on this bird and increased our total number of contacts to 28, which was more than last year. 

The Field Day location was the Mount View Middle School in Marriottsville, MD, grid square FM 19, at 39° 19 min 22.7 sec N and 76° 56 min 11.2 sec W. We began set up Friday afternoon with the equipment being delivered by Bernie K3BAZ over a period of time from different locations. Dave W8AJR’s son, Tim Prestel, helped Art N3OY, Dave WA3URO, Ed N2EC and Dave W8AAS set up the equipment.

 As seen in the close up of the photo above, we used Don W4VQA’s Channel Master dish with a patch antenna and a downconverter. 

While attaching the cable to the 2 meter Yagi antenna the connection between the cable and the cable connector was suspect. Art and Dave WA3URO proceeded to repair the connection in the field. Soldering was done with Don’s generator that provided us with power from Friday afternoon until just before Field Day started when we connected to Bob KC3VO’s main generator for the site.

 Saturday morning we began testing the system. At 10:53 am we contacted K3VDB outside of York PA. We couldn’t log this QSO for Field Day, which begins at 2 pm, and so in a relaxed manner we chatted with Charlie. When we mentioned we were near Columbia MD, Charlie asked if we knew Pat Kilroy N8PK. We then learned that Charlie attended the local DC area Amsat meeting May 4, 2003, at the Goddard Space Flight Center where Charlie took photos for Pat and where Art N3OY and Ed N2EC made presentations. Small world!

 The AO-40 Contacts – Part 1
When the contest began at 2 pm we were very pleased to make our first contact on AO-40 within 2 minutes. See the log table below listing all of our contacts. The window of operation for AO-40 was only until about 4 pm that day and by 3 pm we were losing our ability to hear ourselves on voice. The cw operators with our FD partner, The Potomac Valley Radio Club (PVRC), were busy, but we were able to briefly persuade Rich KE3Q to make our first cw contact with N4TF, the Tampa Bay Amateur Radio Society in Tampa Bay, FL. This occurred at 3:47 pm just before the bird was no longer available.

 Attempts at the International Space Station (ISS)
With AO-40 out of view until 3:30 am Sunday morning we tried to work the International Space Station NA1SS during its pass at around 7 pm Saturday night. This proved difficult to do from many reasons. First, we discovered our “automated” Unitrac program would not work with this bird with its 145.80 MHz downlink and 144.49 MHz uplink. Bernie came to our aid with a system of programming three adjacent channels into the radio’s memory to take account of (1) the doppler as it arrived, (2) the specified frequencies as it was overhead and (3) a different doppler setting as it was leaving.

 The next problem in working ISS was the uncertainty as to when astronaut Ed Lu would be on the radio. An e-mail on the Sarex reflector stated:

“Look for the ISS during Field Day during these time slots:
1.  28 June  18:21-18:42 UTC  Northern & Southeastern U.S.
2.  29 June  10:59-11:17 UTC  Southern & Northeastern U.S.
3.  29 June  12:33-12:53 UTC  Western U.S.
4.  29 June  17:23-17:44 UTC  Northeastern U.S.
5.  29 June  18:59-19:20 UTC  Northwestern & Southern U.S.
We don't know if the crew will be active or not but give it a try.  You never know!”

These were all Sunday passes.

 We did not hear any traffic on ISS during the Sunday morning “Western” pass of 8:46 am (12:46 UTC) although apparently Ed Lu was operating. We listened for the passes at 10:21 am and at 1:30 pm, but apparently Ed was not operating.

 The AO-40 Contacts – Part 2
Art got up early on Sunday morning at 3:30 am to work AO-40 when it was operational again. He made 13 voice contacts including foreign stations. Then the European stations seemed to be putting in strong signals so that they were capturing the U.S. stations calling CQ and the calling stations in the “pileups” could not hear us.

 Later in the morning we were told that AO-40 would not be optimal for voice for a couple of hours until about 11:30 am to noon. Again, looking for a cw operator, we were told to ask Ben K3UM a cw relief rover for PVRC. We persuaded him to help us on cw and he obtained 10 great contacts worth 2 points each.

 Ben left to do further relief work for PVRC at about noon. From then on we could not seen to hear ourselves on the bird. This means we were not being “heard” by AO-40. Although we are not sure why this happened, we believe the squint angle was increasing and so AO-40’s antenna was no longer pointing directly down to earth to adequately receive our uplink signal. The net result was that we could not make any more voice contacts.

 The following is a log of the contacts we made.

 Voice 17 X 1 = 17        Satellite Station Bonus 100
CW    11 X 2 = 22                    QSO Points      39
                         39                                 Total  139

Those involved with the Carasat operation at Field Day this year were: 

Art N3OY
Ben N3UM
Bernie K3BAZ
Bob KC3VO
Dave W8AJR
Dave WA3URO
Dave W8AAS
Dave N3OYF
Don W4VQA
Ed N2EC
Jon KF3O
Rich KE3Q
Tim Prestel