When I arrived at 12:15, I found the main Pavilion to be packed. There was another group that had reserved it for some kind of Asian-oriented festival, and the parking lot was full. So I went further down the road to another (lower) picnic shelter, and informed those on their way of the situation. That picnic shelter was also reserved by a smaller group, but there was plenty of parking available in that lot. So I told people that I was setting up there, and proceeded to un-pack.
As it turns out, other hams stayed at the main Pavillion and parked along the road (marked by a yellow curb). They set up on the narrow strip of grass between parking bays, and presumably operated from their vehicles when the rain hit.
At the lower shelter, however, hams soon began to arrive. I set up a dual-band ground-plane on my tripod, along with a camp chair and an HT (tri-band Kenwood F6-A). KE0NA (Dave) set up a table with the 222 MHz repeater that he and N0YNT (Matt) have been working on in hopes of giving it a field test. Dave brought along his new Hustler G7-220 vertical and a mag-mount 1.25M whip. Matt also brought his young son, Riley, who I inadvertently knocked over while setting up. Hey, sorry Riley.
Meanwhile, KD0ZWN (Josh), KD0UIH (Chuck) and N0RUA (Tony) worked on a collaborative HF station: Yaesu FT-897D, LDG auto-tuner, tripod and mast, and an Alpha-Delta multi-band vertical.
It was a bit humid, though cloudy with a breeze. In the space of about fifteen minutes, we had set up three stations. I had a "sked" with KD0RRA (Travis) planned on UHF FM simplex, and I was figuring how we'd use Tony's UHF rig for that. The 1.25M repeater was already in operation, and the HF station was searching for potential contacts.
Then, the rain hit.
Tarps were hastily strewn, and gear stashed in vehicles. What was expected to be a ten-minute rain turned out to be pretty much non-stop, though it did drop to a drizzle at various points. I missed my window with Travis while I was waiting in my car for the rain to stop, but we met up shortly after that on the 444.425 repeater and re-scheduled. At that point, I was using my HT as I sat under a tarp, and the UHF simplex contact never materialised at that low power.
The HF team found that there was a contest in progress, and didn't make any QSOs from the bottom of pile-ups. The 1.25M repeater team proved that an HT could easily reach the portable machine from about a mile away, but even better news was that the receiver didn't "de-sense" without a duplexer. I threw out my sign on several repeaters, mostly without luck.
At around the 2:30, the rain came down in buckets and I folded. My tripod had toppled and broken off the wooden dowel that supported the ground-plane. I sat in my car for a while and had my best luck of the day using my HT with my mobile tri-band whip. The improvised tarp on the repeater station wasn't holding up well, and the HF station in the hatchback was having trouble staying dry with the heavier rain.
And so it ended. In my mind, it was memorable in terms of the team-work and fun, rather than the actual results. Next month, it'll be better. That's what I told myself last month, and it turned out to be true. It's not about the radios or the aerials. It's about getting together with other hams and meeting a challenge.
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