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.
This is the Oscar satellite station owned by Tom N6DGK for the 1997 FD event.
Tom N6DGK
Hugh W6WTU
Terry KC6VCL
Setting the guy wires for the 20 meter beam. That’s George, N6RVC in the red hat.This is a view of the typical XAR section of the field day site.
This is John, KM6JV climbing the 20 meter tower to “fix” a VSWR problem.
This is John, KM6JV in his operating tent. John operated 15 meter CW.
This is George, N6RVC sitting in his tent. George operated 20 meter CW.
This is a view of the TRW antenna farm along with their vehicles. The antennas are coming down in this view.That’s Hugh, W6WTU in the foreground wearing a farmer’s hat.
The TRW Radio Club furnishes all of the food for the field day event. This is a sample of what was available during the 1998 event.
Hugh Wells 