The White Rock Club held their Field Day event at a new location this year. We decided early on to set up within the City of White Rock this year, hoping we could attract a few city officials to the site. Two options were considered, the White Rock beach area and the Centennial Arena. Our final choice was the arena and we were able to setup on the balcony as the weather was pleasant.
Club members started setting up shortly after 9am. Our first task was to get our antenna deployed. This we did on the flat roof of the administration section of the arena. Ralph Webb loaned us is go kit which included a loop antenna and some mast sections. We got that stretched out on the roof quite easily once some concrete blocks loaned by Eric Kehler were brought into action. The weight helped stabilize the tripod holding the mast. Later in the day Ralph setup up his buddy pole in a vertical configuration and we used it for the second half of our time.
Once the antenna was up, Ralph finished the configuration with his IC-706Mk II G radio and we were on the air – a bit early so we got a few test contacts completed as we waited for the 11AM start. By now most of the club members had arrived and we were busy enjoying each other’s company while a few us finished some last minute details.  Stuart Lyster brought his 220Mhz portable equipment and quickly setup his telescoping mast and yagi to be ready for the pile-up on 220! He was able to actually work two stations on 220 during the contest period! Jay Melvin also brought his portable equipment and set it up for 15m, though we heard a number of stations we were unable to work any with it.
Shortly before getting on the air Geoff Kehler brought us a load of coffee and doughnuts to help us through the grueling on-air activity of breaking through the many pile-ups. It was much appreciated by the guys.
Once 11 came around we quickly got busy with our contacts and started documenting each of the 37 contacts we made, not a huge number but then we really aren’t a contesting group. Our main intent is to get out and test the emergency readiness of our skills. As we were operating at the official reception centre for the city we were operating as class 2F this year. That was a change and a less common class than most in use. After a few hours we switched radios to Eric’s IC-7000. This was a recent purchase for his back-country travels and today was the first use of the radio. The general opinion was that it was quieter than the 706 thanks to the more advanced DSP filtering it has.
We had a few visitors to the site but no city officials. It was unfortunate as I do think they should take a bit of time to familiarize themselves with the different aspects of emergency preparedness. By 3:30 we felt that we had had enough contesting and operating for the day and we packed up the gear and cleared out. Over-all everyone was happy with the day. We successfully deployed our equipment in an emergency configuration. We made a number of contacts through the mid-west and Hawaii. We tried a number of different antennas and radios and generally had a good time socializing while there.