Field Day, Charleston division

[Terry Fox]

Mel convinced me to join the Trident Amateur club (TARC) here in 
Charleston for field day, callsign N4EE.  I have visited there in the 
past, but this is the first time that I operated.  The TARC Field Day 
operation is in what must be one of the largest field locations I have 
seen.  A local ham and avid Boy Scout supported (Oscar Meyer) has a HUGE 
spread on Johns Island, near the ocean.  It must be over 100 acres, and 
includes a pond about 1/3 the size of Lake Barcroft (including an 
island) in the middle of his property.  He also has a series of 
telephone poles planted around the periphery of the large cleared 
section of his property (to string antennas between).  It is a 
wonderful, remote site.

We had two transmitter positions, a phone station and a cw station.  The 
phone station used an HF vertical antenna, and a "portable" tower and 
tri-band beam, deployable on a trailer.  The portable tower and beam 
worked great.  The CW station used a 80-meter dipole strung between two 
phone poles.  It used my new K3/P3 as the rig (with its internal ATU).  
The two stations ran two laptops connected by wifi for logging.

I spent most of my time with the CW station, which operated most of the 
time on 40M.  The internal tuner of the K3 worked great to tune this 
antenna.  I operated from about 11PM to about 4AM, and then again from 
about 6AM to 830AM.  My CW was rusty, but I eventually found my mojo, 
and was able to make many contacts in S&P mode.  At about 1230PM Sunday, 
I went to the phone station and operated 15M and then 40M until the 
contest ended for us at 2PM.

Operating on field day caused me to re-evaluate my decision to purchase 
a K3/P3 instead of a Flex Radio SDR.  I must say that in the end I 
totally believe that I made the right choice.  The K3/P3 worked 
flawlesly, and was the epitome of simplicity to set up or operate, even 
for non-SDR users.  No computer to cause problems (just a separate 
laptop running logging N3FJP software).  Almost no RF problems.  We only 
had one issue when trying to run on 20M CW, a separate keyer caused the 
K3 to get stuck in transmit on 20M.  Switching to the internal K3 keyer 
solved that.  Note that the RV we were operating in was parked directly 
under the antenna, which helped cause this one issue.  I cannot imagine 
a Flex running in the same conditions.  Note that Lyle Johnson, KK7P, of 
TAPR and packet radio fame, wrote the K3 DSP software.

Using the P3 in a narrow bandwidth mode (25k?) allowed us to see the 
various CW stations right around us in freq, and I quickly found that I 
could recognize any new stations that fired up, via the display.

I have nothing against the Flex radios, but I believe one of them would 
be far more difficult to set up and operate in these portable 
conditions.  Just adding the computer itself brings in a whole raft of 
potential problems, most of which require many clamp-on chokes to 
solve.  Plus, unless you use a laptop for the second-half of a Flex rig, 
you are susceptible to computer problems every time the generator 
hiccups or shuts down for refueling.  Also, I am finding it becoming 
more and more difficult to find laptops with firewire built-in, a 
requirement for Flex 5000 or 3000 rigs.  The Flex 1500 uses USB, so 
that's a little better.

Plus, I'm not so sure about operating a Flex, or ANY other QSD/QSE based 
rig in the close-in multi-station operations.  While QSE images and 
other artifacts may meet FCC requirements, operating multiple positions 
in such a close-by environment makes those issues become relevant.  The 
same with QSD sensitivities to nearby transmitters operating 
off-frequencies.  The issues of phase and gain balancing, and can become 
major operating too close to other stations, and especially if multiple 
rigs are all QSD/QSE based.

Don't get me started with computer operating systems either.  Whether it 
is Windows, and its ever-increasing throttling of SDR-required 
operations (hardware interfacing, DRM - which is the equivalent of 
Digital LACK-OF RIGHTS for anything other than what we can charge for, 
DLL incompatibilites), or Linux, where the package "gods" decide to 
constantly make unnecessary changes that breaks previously-working 
systems and requires many hours to resolve, or Apple, which seems to be 
going down the Microsoft model of treating customers as antagonists, I 
don't want a rig that is significantly based on any of these overkill 
systems.

I used a standard 350VA UPS to power the K3, but I heard the UPS 
constantly switching between AC and battery power, so I ended up 
plugging into the surge protection side of the UPS, not the actual UPS 
outputs.

I realize that the above may be difficult to resolve with my pro-SDR 
stance, but I believe in using the best tool(s) for an application, and 
I don't believe we are there yet for multi-station, field operations 
using present-day SDR rigs.

What would probably change my mind would be a rig based on DDC/DUC SDR 
technology, with a small, DSP-based back end instead of a generic 
computer.  Using DDC/DUC pieces gets around the whole QSD/QSE and their 
assorted band-aids.  Using a DSP-based back-end (ala Pic-A-Star, SDR 
Cube, or other similar hardware) gets around the generic computer problems.

The Flex people like to complain about Elecraft K3 "fanboys" or 
"fanbois", but they can be even more rabid.  I expect to get flamed 
here, but as this recent operating experience proved to me, a 
high-quality rig that I can plunk down and have running in less than 
five minutes with zero trouble is of primary importance in the field.  
Will SDR rigs get there?  YES.  Absolutely!  Are they there yet, I don't 
think so.  But, that's just me.

(this is also meant to elicit contrary opinions and facts).

Flame-proof suit is on, go at it!
Thanks.
Terry