2002 Field Day on the Blue Ridge Parkway, VA.
This is our 2002 Field Day site located near Galax, Virginia on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Mile Post 209. We had a family operation with son Mark, KE5GL, son Tom, N5TER, and myself Bob, K4OCE. We called ourselves "The Virginia Hams" naturally. We had a camper, so the spouses and two grandchildren stayed in a nearby campground.
We operated two Kenwood TS-570D on batteries both running 5 watts. This gave us the QRP and battery multiplier. One car battery per rig lasted the 24-hour period, although close. We had one spare car battery for backup. The antennas were two all band trap dipoles, one going north-south and one going east-west. Swapping dipoles helped with the propagation. I operated CW and made about 550 contacts, and the boys took turns on SSB making around 325. I had no problems on CW with the lower power, but it was much harder getting through on sideband. Our final score put us at #14 for the nation which we thought was very good for the first year. Next time we plan to go for all the bonus points since we realized that would have put us up a few notches.
Our source of power for lights
"Operating" cabin in the background