QRP to the Field

NJQRP Report & Results

Click to see NJ-QRP in Action! (pictures)

I can't leave well enough alone. Here is a combined QRP to the Field Report for the NJQRP club. Members have submitted individual reports with score totals and all that dry, boring stuff, but this is an attempt to tie it all together and, perhaps, to make you chuckle a little.

DANGER - PUNS AHEAD - you might want to exercise discretion in exposing the humor-impaired, sensitive individuals and small children to the following...

New Jersey QRP Club QTTF Site Selection

The membership of the NJQRP group recently underwent an exhaustive search for significant locations for our QRP to the Field operation. Since we wanted the best location possible, the site search began in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania.

The first spot we looked at was in central Pennsylvania near the Gettysburg Battlefield. However the National Park police weren't at all civil so we decided not to address that place. Coming east a bit, we thought of Three Mile Island near Harrisburg. But Cam, KT3A and others had already staked a claim there and we were afraid that there would be a reaction to too much radio activity there. Closer yet to New Jersey was Valley Forge park, but we decided that going there was too revolutionary.

Just across the River from New Jersey, we looked at a couple of possibilities in Philadelphia. We tried to get permission from the folks at the Independence Hall, but asbestos we tried, we could not get in. So then we checked out the Navy Yard, home of the WWII Philadelphia Experiment, but the (Philadelphia) lawyers shut us down when the ship we hoped to use just disappeared. Right up the street was the parking lot of the Corestates Center where the 76'ers play basketball (?), but they weren't game so we lost out there. Our final out of state choice was in Lancaster, but we were afraid that the Amish there might not appreciate our group so we decided not to get in Dutch with Pennsylvania.

That meant we had to settle on New Jersey because the mob of us decided that Jersey was Our Thing.

One possibility was Camden where we could operate near site where Campbell's Soup used to have a plant, across the street from the RCA Nipper Tower. However some local inner-city youths stole our site and we had to can that thought. Nearby was Deptford, home of Blanchard's historic landing, but the owner of the land there proved to be full of hot air and the effort of setting up in that site simply kept ballooning. There was also a location in Pennsauken (Indian name for land of industrial parks built on toxic waste dumps by the fetid waters). When our delegation went there, they found our projected site now occupied by a trash to steam plant. We took a gamble on Atlantic City but we couldn't find a slot. Someone else had a monopoly on good locations and trumped us so we decided that that site wasn't in the cards.

Up at the other end of the state (actually our northern neighbors claim it is their land), we tried for Ellis Island. But there were too many tourists, so we abandoned it to the huddled masses. The Meadowlands up by Giant Stadium in East Rutherford seemed appealing. On inspection though, Jimmy Hoffa's spirit shooed us away telling us that he had that location set in concrete. Or was it the other way around? There were several sites along the Jersey Turnpike, but they were impossible to find in the smog from all those refineries! Besides, travelling on that road always takes its toll. One of the guys who lived near there had the inventive idea of going to Edison, but we finally saw the light and decided against it.

We inquired about operating near Bell Labs in Holmdel. We were unable to make a proper connection. We could only get their voice mail so we decided not to get too hung up on operating there. The authorities at Fort Dix proved too militant, scratching that as a possibility. Heading east we looked into Leeds Point, home of the Jersey Devil. Looking for antenna supports we found that the pines growing there were too barren for. The state capitol of Trenton was definitely too taxing. Nearby Bordentown, named for the infamous Lizzie Borden was chopped off our list, too.

So instead we chose a location close to Princeton where it is reported that Albert Einstein used to go fission. It is Grovers Mill, the historic site of the Martian Invasion in the October 30, 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

And that is more or less how we chose our QRP to the Field site!

The Scene

Van Nest Park, our final selection is an excellent place. It is on a small lake just up the road from a feed store with the name Grovers Mill on the side. Presumably there once was a mill on the small stream flowing by. The park has a large open field next to the lake with a picnic grove, a covered pavilion and plenty of nearby trees. And no shortage of Canada geese.

Near the pavilion is a large plaque suitable adorned with board droppings commemorating the Grovers Mill as the site of the martian landing in the famous October 30, 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast A suitable picture will be posted on the NJQRP web page in the near future.

The Activity

The gang began to arrive at about 9 a.m. In retrospect this is too early for a sprint that is nationwide in scope. To fortify the troops, I brought along bagels and cream cheese and George Heron N2APB brought he coffee!

Several stations were set up. James, KA5DVS used his FT301 with a sloping wire down by the lake next to the pavilion for an SSB endeavor. Sad to say that he and Bill, W2DP heard lots of stations and some dx, but few of them were operating in QRP to the Field. They did, however manage to work a local station, KB2ZSB. This fellow, Dave Zinetti had recently gotten a new rig and was trying out QRP! He stopped over and checked us out for several hours and NJQRP gained a new convert.

Clark, WA2UNN used part of the pavilion to operate his own SSB station. His Argo 509 and tree-supported dipole also managed to hear plenty of dx but netted only a single QTTF QSO. Clark was very popular, though because he brought along lots of fruit, sandwich fixings, potato chips and antenna wire.

George Heron, N2APB, opted to camp out on the open field among the duck droppings (they must enhance soil conductivity). Out in the clear, his trap vertical and Sierra did an excellent job on 20 and 40 cw. George dragged over a picnic table, set up his beach umbrella and beach recliner. His was definitely the classiest station on site! George was like a kid in a candy shop once he realized that a.) There were large trees placed strategically across the clearing and b.) Clark had a (*large* reel of wire just itching to be made into an antenna. He set up a humongous loop (more details in his individual report) that looked like a giant coat hanger several hundred feet on a side! If there had been more activity, he really would have cleaned up with this one! Of course he kept a close eye out for the park police. They would not have believed his story about putting up antennas if they had seen him walking round a bunch of geese with a sling shot - certainly not in New Jersey!

Another man outstanding in his field was Dean, N2TNN. He and N2APB made up a kind of tag team match who wrestled QSo after QSO from the sparse QTTF competitiors. And when he wasn't operating, Dean was working on his SSLV (Slanted St Louis Vertical). Once more soft soil (aided by goose err...grease?) kept it from acheiving vertical stability. On the other hand he *was* able to decpher some of W6MMA's info sheet and tune up his SLV. Vern's adjustable loading coil really is nifty!

A non-operating visitor to our site was another George (last name or call?) who has built a neat 30 meter QRP rig using for its basis an inexpensive synthesized broadcast radio. He declined to get on the air, but showed us his goodies and handed out sketches. We are encouraging him to write it up for the qrp journals since it is a simple, inexpensive way to make a synthesized qrp transceiver..

Ken, N2CQ didn't bring his station, but he *did* bring his memory keyer and paddle - kinda like a pool shark with his own cue stick! He also brought along lots of hot dogs and fixings. He "borrowed" other's stations when they got tired and racked up 11 Q's on 20 and 6 on 40 for a total score of 800 points which is not too shabby considering the lack of stations hear.

Bill, W2DP also didn't set up a station, but he did bring long his QRP+ and QRP Pal and even more hot dogs and pickles. He graciously allowed me (N2CX) check it out with my setup to compare with my equipment. he made at least one SSB contact with James's rig when he coerced me to work him on 20 SSB. It's been a looong time since I operated HF SSB. I may not do it again for a while 'cause he told me I sounded like Donald Duck.

N2CX Setup

I opted to operate from the picnic pavilion. With James's help, a "Halfer" was configured as end-fed inverted U for 40 meters and end-fed half square for 20. We taped quarter-wave counterpoise wires for 20 and 40 around floor of pavilion out of the way and the antenna tuned up well - with a clip lead in series because it was erected too high!

Operating under cover wasn't such a smart idea after all. With the cool breeze off the lake it was awfully cool under cover. George's coffee kept the icicles at bay, but I had to get up periodically and go warm up in the sun! Rigs used were W2DP's QRP+ and venerable Argo 509. Both had advantages and disadvantages. QRP+ was slick to operate with its digital dial, extremely effective switchable-bandwidth audio filtering, and built-in keyer. BTW, is that cw speed indicator accurate? I set it for 20 wpm and found it glacially slow! However the QRP+ reciever seemned rather noisy. At Clark's suggestion, we drained wind-generated static off the antenna and got rid of some noise by shunting a 200 k resistor from antenna to ground. But there was still ipmpulse-type noise that was very annoying.

The Argo heard the same sort of noise too, but was usable in its presence. Using it, noise did not degrade reception nearly as much as with the Index rig. So it became rig of choice.

However there was another plus (pun intneded for Index rig. James's FT301 had strong desensing from my Argo, but not from QRP+. He thought it might be the 9 MHz if sneaking into his receiver. I found that both rigs used for cw suffered interference no matter what band used, from both Clark's and James's rigs.

Club totals

Here are QSO summaries for the CW efforts. No total was available from James or Bill at press time. There were probably fewer than 10 total SSB QSO's, however.

Not that it means anything, but the NJQRP'ers on site racked up a total of 74 contacts with a total score of 5420 points.

General Comments

The NJQRP group found an excellent field operating site and all enjoyed the day. We encountered no aliens - unless you count Canadian Geese. The weather was fine overall and with the great great company it was a good day to be out bonding with fellow QRP'ers and eat *lots* of hot dogs! However on-the-air activity was on the low side. We may consider setting up later in the futre and staying past the 6 pm east coast time to catch stations farther west who don't get rolling as early as we did and operated after we had quit.

72/73,

Joe E., N2CX
from Southern New Jersey, y'all
home: n2cx@voicenet.com