how did your 2016 field day go?

[Soup-man]

Well if a bulb blew when it was plugged in I would say the voltage was wrong. One thing I ALWAYS do with generators, including my own every time I use it, is check the output voltage at the plug I am plugging into. If they were running two separate cords it is possible one may have had an end installed by someone wrong. BRASS colored terminal gets the BLACK wire, SILVER colored terminal gets the WHITE wire and the GROUND goes to the GREEN terminal. I have seen them wired white to brass and black to silver. easy way to remember is B to B and G to G and the W by default goes to the silver(white?) terminal. It is possible in this case for each cord to work by itself albeit with a shock hazard with one of them by causing a hot chassis. When both cords were run to a distribution box it is possible that the phasing was wrong and resulted in 240 volts on a 120 volt outlet. Several times I have needed 240 volts when only 120 was available and by using two separate 120 volt circuits I was able to make a temporary 240 volt source available at the workbench.

When I got there this year, the outlet cover on the generator was missing. My guess is that someone broke it when they discovered that the genius that wired the outlets onto the generator wired them wrong, or it caught fire at some point and melted the plate. My CFL bulb did not blow this year and there was no arcing when I plugged things in!
The warning sign should have been that all those things happened at the same time last year.
The bad thing about it was - that it was raining and there was at least one inch of water everywhere on the ground last year.
Not the best time to be playing around with electricity.
Maybe something was shorting out or was miswired - my guess is that the two pronged plugs were reversed and it tripped the breaker on the power supply when the ground fought against the hot.. But I didn't complain too loud, else they might have told me to get lost... If you read what I previously wrote, they had these MFJ power meters on all of the power strips.
http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-DM55-1

 

[BJ radionut]

This year was my unknown number of Field Day events. I have operated so many I have lost count, nor am I sure I could recall all of them. I am old!
I will however offer a few comments to the conversation.
First let me preface by saying I believe Field Day to be the most important amateur radio event on the calendar year. Yes, I know big statement. I find Field Day this important due to it's general propose and methodology. The set-up and use of equipment and antennas in a non-standard location for the testing of emergency operation.
This general statement is I believe the sole reason why Field Day exists. We all as operators can become very complacent in our own little shacks and hone the use of our equipment to it's optimum performance to satisfy each of our needs.
We then, some of us arrive on Field Day weekend. I myself then rip the heart and soul out of my little oasis called the shack and throw it in boxes, hard cases or what ever container is available and do what with it?
Yes, I move it to some other location and try to reassemble it from scratch for a 24 hour fan fare of chaos! This by any standard can be defined only as out right temporary insanity. This is Field Day!
I can not remember a single Field Day where at least some small piece of my treasured oasis has not meet it's doom. This year it was my Diawa 801 HP3 watt meter, who's fate it was to take a 3 foot drop to the garage floor on it's face while I stood there holding one of the rubber protective bumpers still in my hand.
Que Sera! We had a wonderful Field Day. We made a bunch of contacts on 40 and 75/80 meters.
We did have one small set back it was 6 meters. We went to the exhausting trouble to erect a 3 element horizontal beam at about 30 ft. I had my treasured FTdx3000D Yaesu, a newly purchased 6m 3 pole bandpass filter, plus a 400 watt amp and associated 75 amp power supply.
I made 6 FREEKEN contacts....Thank goodness for the 80-10m doublet we also erected along with the 40m 1/4 wave vertical. The doublet proved to be the best antenna we used. We made several hundred contacts on both phone and CW on 75/80m. The 40m vert did almost equally as well, with most contacts coming on the "first call".
I would like to note we had what best can be described as the old and the new set-up.
The 40m station was a Kenwood TS-520s w/ matching VFO and the stock hand mic.
The 75/80m being my Ftdx3000D and Heil Gold Elite mic, and vibroplex presentation paddles.
We operated from a campground in SE Indiana under my call W9FNB, we had many camper visitors to see our set-up. Our nearest neighbor claimed he was getting HBO on his TV due to all the antennas running through several campsites
Let's see when is Field Day 2017?
All the Best
Gary/W9FNB

Well finally got the logs complied....Thought we had more Q's but still not bad...
Q / Points Scored: 382
40m Report: 23 states worked + (3) prov. Canada
80m Report: 15 states worked + (3) prov. Canada
6m Report: 3 states worked....(BAND DEAD) Only 7 contacts... EGAD!

Total Hours of operation: (16)
Totals: 28 different States...+ (4 prov. Canada)
Best Distance 80m...Arizona....New Hampshire....Rhode Island
Ontario- Quebec & Saskatchewan,CANADA

Best Distance 40m...Texas...Florida...Mass...upstate NY...Ontario & Quebec Canada

All considering not bad for a (2) transmitter / (3) operator set-up
w/ Our normal all night CW operator crashing at 10:30 pm....
And I was up making contacts and Coffee before he was!....
And I am the Old Goat of the crew
Great time!
All the Best
Gary/W9FNB