Field Day 2021

For Field Day this year, our ARES group, Amateur Radio Emergency Service of Douglas and Elbert Counties (ARESDEC) in Colorado decided to use AREDN for networking the logging PCs, using the N3FJP Field Day Contest Log software and Ubiquiti nodes. We used the TCP method in the N3FJP software, so the only setup needed was to put the IP address of the server PC in all of the client PCs. We had 5 stations setup for Field Day, so there were 5 clients connected to the server. We used a Rocket M2 with a vertical omnidirectional antenna for the server and placed the server and Rocket M2 at our communications trailer where we knew we would have an uninterrupted power source (batteries, solar panels and a generator as backup.) Since the server was co-located with the CW station, the CW station logging PC had a Nanostation M2 connected to it. The server was located in the southwest corner of the Field Day site. All of the other station locations had a Bullet M2 and Yagi pointed back to the server's omnidirectional antenna. Because Field Day setups are within a small geographic area, there was no concern regarding distance issues between nodes. The rather short distances involved resulted in solid signal strengths, as would be expected. The question was, would the TCP connections remain solid for the duration of the event? N3FJP warns about network disruptions causing issues with the logging software, and this was our first attempt at using AREDN for the networking, so the setup was tested prior to Field Day in order to gain a level of comfort that it would work okay. During testing, we repeatedly took client nodes down for a while and then brought them back up, took the server node down and brought it back up, and every time the TCP connections would re-establish and continue working with no corruption of the server's logging database. We could not get the server database corrupted no matter what we tried to do on the AREDN side to disrupt the network. And, sure enough, the network ran perfectly during the Field Day event, despite very heavy rains, lightning nearby, and high winds. The Ubiquiti nodes performed flawlessly and the AREDN mesh networking made setting up the system very easy. We have used standard WAPs before at Field Day, and that works okay if the logging clients and logging server stations are close together, but when we gravitated towards having the stations separated by greater distances within the 1000 ft diameter allowed by the rules, it can begin to stretch the limitations of a single WAP to cover that area, especially with laptops sitting inside metal trailers. Being able to easily place AREDN nodes outside of the trailers, while keeping the logging PCs and their operators warm and dry inside a trailer, eliminates any concerns with RF coverage. We could have run fiber optic cabling between the stations, but in the spirit of the radio hobby, an RF-based network seemed more appropriate, especially one conducted on amateur allocated frequencies. All-in-all, the use of an AREDN mesh setup for Field Day worked extremely well, and our group scored the highest Field Day points this year than we ever have.
Attached is a photo of the site layout.