Over the years the club used a 40 foot tower which had to be hauled to the site in 10 foot sections along with supporting guy wires etc. In 2005 instead of erecting a large tower just for the full size 20 meter beam, one of the members Warren W3JDF found a military surplus portable crankup tower which originally was used as a lighting tower for the military. They crank up to about 25 feet and are ideal for mounting any type of rotator. The club now has access to 3 of these all aluminum crankup units and they have been used in a few VHF contests in WV.
If it hadn't been for some severe electrical storms that Saturday evening during Field Day 2006, the club would have had a higher score. Recently we have had some help from the BRATS Club in Baltimore as far as operators and also with Ed, N3GXH letting the club use his electricity from the diesel generator onboard his motor home. Last year Frank AC3P noticed a vanity call sign available with the letters AE3RO. That call was ideal to compliment the club's regular call W3PGA and soon AL K3ROJ applied to change the Kenwood High School call from K3KHS to AE3RO which is used for the GOTA station.
The club concentrated on using CW as much as possible since it counts as 2 points on Field Day. One of our best CW operators Bob ND3D operated again all night (also in 2005) to really boost the total score. Enjoy the many photos on the other pages that show how the club works as a team for this annual event. There are scrolling butttons along with a photo show option where you can change the speed of pictures displayed.
