Field Day
Another Field Day is here and of course I'm not participating. But I used to in the 20th century.
The Nicolet High School club and alumni went on Field Day for many years. But then after a while the entries were made as the Glen Gates Gang. Mr. Gates was a physics teacher at Nicolet and the advisor to the radio club. Here is a link to my GGG page:
I somehow became the photographer of the event each year. The pinnacle of my efforts was the cover of November 1975 QST:
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| not only framed it but also bought a few extra copies at Amateur Electronic Supply ! |
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| the blurb on the contents page |
The corny sunset picture shows one of the tents (we usually went 2A) and in the background the portable tower with the tri-band beam at 70 feet. Here is the picture itself:
The tower itself was all-aluminum. As I recall it was originally put up by one of the club members, Jerry WA9WXP. It was 70 feet no guy wires. But the tower was damaged in a storm. The club got the remains and Scott WB9JHX, led the design and build of the portable version. Scott wrote an article about the tower but unfortunately it wasn't published and is now lost. When I joined the club the tower was already completed. Anyway, it was fully portable and used steel pipe to extend the antenna back to the full 70 feet. The rotator was at the base of the tower. There were a number of steel roller skate wheels used as bearings to allow the steel pipe to rotate. It was a really clever concept and build although a little scary at times during setup and take down :)
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| An open shutter night shot with the ghostly Morrie, WB9JHW |
Portrait views are good for covers but not for QSLs, so I used this Field Day picture on my QSL:
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| from page 70, November 1974 QST, with Jeff WB9NGD (now K4EVT) |
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY