[Jeffhs]

I wish I could get to the Field Day sites in my area. Been in ham radio 40 years and haven't been to an FD in about 20. Never set up and operated my station at an FD site, either. One of these days...

I am a member of a local radio club (the Lake County, Ohio Amateur Radio Association), but haven't been to their meetings in a couple years, the reason being I don't drive and the bus service here doesn't operate after seven p.m. (the meetings begin at 7:30 and often do not break up until 10 or so). The weekends are worse, as the service doesn't run at all then, so getting to an FD site that way is out of the question as well.

At least on Field Day, I'd be able to use my Icom IC-725 and portable antenna; here in my apartment, the gear works, but not well at all. I've been told it's because the rig isn't DC-grounded. That may well be, but I can't find anything in this place to ground the set to as almost all the water pipes are PVC. There is a ground rod outside the building, but it belongs to the cable company, so I don't dare connect anything to it. I presently operate a 1.5-watt HT through the local repeater, and Echolink on HF, but I doubt if I could use the latter as a Field Day setup. Wouldn't be worth it, anyway, as Echolink QSOs are not recognized by the ARRL and therefore would not count as valid FD contacts.



73,