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Field Day 2018 After Action Report
FD Checklist - https://www.icloud.com/numbers/0VaJN1hAT7erA-uZOcK5hkkcw#FD_2017_Checklist
Weather:
Weather was in the mid 80’s and mostly cloudy for Saturday. Sever thunderstorms were possible for Saturday night. Even saw a tornado watch and two tornado warning right at the Alabama line around 1800 Saturday.
New/Upgrades for FD 2018:
- Emergency Email Server (EES)
- Connection panel on back of go box
Upgrade Considerations:
- MFJ Battery Boost for Go Box
- Solar panel for MESH battery box
- DC to DC charger for Laptop
- Holder for push up pole
- AP for Emergency Email Server (EES)
General Notes:
I didn’t operate as much this year as I would have liked to. Much of the morning was spent setting up the mesh and trouble shooting various things on everyone’s setup. Around the time operations started, several visitors came through. I spent most of my time explaining my setup. Also had the opportunity to program a Baofeng radio for a ham new to the area. Also, a good deal of time was spent with demos for the emergency email server. This is to be expected. I would have normally operated overnight after the daytime activities died down a bit, but we chose not to stay since we had a 50/50 chance of severe weather moving into the area overnight. I did visit with the Rutherford county group on Sunday. Might consider doing field day with DCCARC on Saturday next year and then with Rutherford county on Sunday instead of staying overnight. If this is to be attempted, I will need to investigate what logging software the Rutherford county group is using and have it installed on my laptop before arriving at their site.
Food:
Took the normal case of chips and box of cookies. Since we didn’t stay overnight, this was more than enough and took 70% of it back home. Purchased 8lbs of dry ice ($16) for my construction cooler. Put dry ice in the bottom, filled with water and then put wet ice on top. This was done because in 2017 water on bottom was frozen and water on top was cool but not cold. Putting wet ice on top of dry ice produced a new problem this year. As the wet ice melted and drained toward the bottom, it would refreeze when it contacted the dry ice. This made it near impossible to get things out of the ice as it was frozen solid around the water bottles.
Sleeping:
Didn’t sleep there this year since there was a possibility of severe weather moving into the area.
Mesh:
LINK TO MOUNTAIN-
Link to the mountain was about the same as 2017. Jeff KG4IKT was able to get a nano station mounted on a 30’ mast at the rescue squad trailer and pointed toward the mountain. This did make a connection. It also produced problems connecting to the internet. He later discovered that he had left some tunnel connections active and this was part of the problem with the internet.
At the back of the park, we cut a hole in the tree line and aimed a nano station to the mountain. This was able to connect as well and became our primary connection to the mountain. Internet speeds were slow again this year. Not enough bandwidth for the SIP phones to work. Testing from my station indicated ~3MBPS download speed.
MESH ONSITE-
Mesh onsite worked as expected again this year. We never seem to have any issues with mesh onsite. Everyone ran on channel 11 at the back end of the park. I did have issues with the AP that I created for the go box. Ended up using the AP in my jeep for my wireless connection to the mesh.
Streaming Video
Didn’t attempt video streaming since the connection to the mountain was weak.
Logging
Logging was done again this year using the ACLOG Field Day software. Worked beautifully. Need to make sure that the network is configured on each stations laptop. Maybe write a how to page and post to mesh before field day? Freddy’s laptop served as the server again this year.
Solar & Battery Box
The battery box and solar panel didn’t see as much action this year. It was overcast the majority of the day and the output from the solar panel was around 1/2 an amp most of the time. On occasion I would see the output jump to 2.3 amps when the sun would peak out. The battery was around 70% when we packed up around 19:30
Generator:
Filled with gas on the way to FD. Generator was fired up when we arrived and provided power to Freddy and Andy’s entire station as well as my laptop. Ran the entire time we were there and still had ~half tank of fuel left.
GO-BOX:
The go box worked as expected. A MFJ battery booster and an upgrade to the solar panel and battery should be considered.
Antennas:
Used the TN07 antenna again this year. I wanted to attach the pole to one of my tent legs so I could free up my jeep by not using the trailer mount as a holder for my push up pole. This didn’t work out because the legs of my tent are slanted and would have caused the antenna to be in contact with the trees. Need to either purchase a tent with straight legs or purchase/construct a ground mount solution for a pole holder. Didn’t hook up a 2M antenna for the gobox. Used a Baofeng for 2M radio. This works fine since we are so close to the mountain.
Emergency Mail Server:
This was a great addition to the setup this year. Overall it was a huge success. It was a lot of fun allowing visitors to connect and send email through the system. Once they posted to the system, I had the opportunity of allowing them to see the back end that the radio operator would use to connect to the Winlink system. One issue that I did notice as to the access point (AP) being served by the Pi. It would cut out from time to time and the system would require a reboot to get it running again. Two possible solutions come to mind. 1. Figure out a way to reboot the wireless AP portion of the system without having to reboot the entire system. 2. Add an external AP to the system and not use the built in wireless for an AP.