| For many years, XAR joined the TRW club in the annual ham
Field
Day event that lasts for a 24 hour period. XAR now operates
alone.
During that time, the event was held at Friendship Park on the eastern
end
of Palos Verdes overlooking the Los Angeles harbor. The view was
terrific where one could enjoy the scenes of ships moving along the
coast
line, and looking across the water to the south and seeing Catalina
Island
standing majestically in the distance. Anyway, what field day is
all about is the making as many contacts via radio as possible during
the 24 hour period using only emergency power to operate
equipment.
To maintain the radio activity, operators pitch tents and generally
stay
awake (but seeing them causes one to wonder if they're really awake at
2am) all night. It helps when there are alternate operators
available
to work in shifts. To support the XAR portion of the event, a
volunteer
crew sets up the antennas one day and tears them down the next day.
Pictures for the XAR/TRW events are shown below. Click on the image to enlarge. |