I'm not planning on only doing Radio out there. I think it would be fun to have a few trail runs scheduled during field day that way we can get non-hams on the trail and introduce them to radio while they are all there.
Location:
I've looked into a few Group Camp sites in Big Bear:
-Juniper Springs, which is off of Hwy38 about 7800 ft in elev.
-Boulder Camp which is on the south side of big bear lake 7500 ft in elev.
-Bluff Mesa was also on the list but has already been reserved by someone else which is at about 7700 ft. in elev.
I haven't been to any of these sites so if anyone has been to any of them and can advise how radio friendly they are as far as trees to use for antennas etc. it would be great to hear about it. otherwise i plan on going up there very soon to scope it out.
the paper i have from the BB Discovery center is showing that these sites can accommodate 8 vehicles and 40 people. and they charge $60 / night (we'd want friday night and sat. night so we can start setting up friday afternoon) for the site so it'd be ideal for people to pitch in.
Radios & Equip:
I'd like to get at least 2 HF stations out there and one VHF (ARISS?),
I have a IC-746pro i'd be willing to take out there along with a AH-4 tuner and long wire.
I have a 20/40m dipole made from ladder line that i've worked NZ with so i'd say it works alright
but we'd need another radio.Also since we're down here in the SW of the U.S. it'd be nice to have a directional antenna. i know the long wire would work for field day but i'd like to take the opportunity of doing something out the ordinary like a massive wire beam pointed WNW between multiple trees or masts for the Low bands for night ops. if at all possible.
For power i have one deep cycle battery and a couple solar panels to help keep it alive during the day. so obviously we'd need a few more batteries.
Logging.. it may be easiest to log on paper this year unless we have a few laptops & ways to power them for running logging software.
4x4 Trails:
not only would we operate radio but i thought we can invite 4x4 enthusiasts out to field day that don't know what ham radio is... take them wheeling and also introduce them to radio all in one shot. If we have one or two trail runs on saturday then one more saturday night i think we'd have enough wheeling scheduled for a good time.
Some trail suggestions are heartbreak ridge(if it's still open), onyx peak, gold mtn, john bull, jacoby cyn? these are the closest trails to the juniper springs camp.
i'd like to have trail leaders figured out ahead of time. and a schedule of what time the runs would be leaving. this makes it easier for the non-hams to know what time to get there if they only want to wheel.
Obviously an event like this can't happen without people.. so i'd like to know who's interested in going and who can help out with radio ops. (cw ops wanted too
) and who would be willing to lead trail runs. we only have 4 weeks to plan this but i think we can definitely pull this together.
i've also posted this on the Rugged Rocks board: http://ruggedrocksoffroad.com/forum/ind ... opic=848.0
take a look at that thread as well to see who is interested in what.
