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Metro DX Club 2015 Field Day
Eleven members of our club participated in the Field Day exercise this year from the grounds of the former Tinley Park Mental Health Center. The Tinley Park Emergency Operations Center staff was very instrumental in the success of our simulated emergency operation as they provided us with an outstanding location, the loan of their emergency communications trailer and generator power. Our thanks go to Mr. Pat Carr, Director of the Tinley Park EMA and Angelo Lazzara of the EMA staff for their help and assistance.
We arrived at the site at 9:00 AM on Saturday, June 27 and we were greeted with donuts to get everyone going as we immediately began our setup. For HF operation, we raised a Double Extended Zepp and used a rig provided by N9TK. For VHF and UHF we used a rig provided by N9LAH. Our antenna on 6 Meters was a dipole; on 144 MHz and 440 MHz we used antennas provided by Phil, N9LAH. In addition, a 600 foot long Beverage receiving antenna was installed for lower noise reception on 40 and 80 Meters at night. Phil, N9LAH, provided two laptop computers for logging and rig control. Our setup was completed well before the official start at 1:00. Bob, N9ORD and Jerry, K9PY were tasked with providing food and refreshments for the group and they came through with flying colors! Lunch was provided prior to operation and Bob did a fine job grilling burgers, brats and hot dogs for our dinner. Nobody went hungry! On Sunday the guys provided lunch before the 1:00 ending time. Site disassembly was very quick and all equipment was removed by 1:30.
Our final count of contacts was 918 with 566 being made on CW and 352 on SSB. VHF was active with 115 QSOs logged. In all, it was a very successful and fun operation.
Club members at Field Day included K9CJ, K9DRS, K9MDO, K9PY, N9AAC, N9AKR, N9LAH, N9ORD, NV9X, W9ILY and WA9LEY. Ham visitors were: KA9IIE, KB9LC and AC9EF. Six visitors from the local community plus two media representatives also viewed our setup.
Members of the media were there and made this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFhSRj6owwk