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https://www.winterfieldday.com/
The next Winter Field Day is January 27th and 28th, 2024. Cindy and I plan to operate again from a cabin at the Doctors Creek Unit of the Cooper Lake State Park. We have cabin CT004 reserved for Friday through Monday of that weekend.
I believe that Mark W5PTX is planning to be there and operate from his RV.
All are welcome to come out to operate or get the other cabin or a shelter or RV/tent campsite and join us!
Last year was my first Winter Field Day and I found it to be much more relaxing than Summer Field Day and I think I made more contacts in the winter than I did in the summer. With the normally mild winters here in NE Texas there was no concern about sunstroke!
Come on out!
Charles I have it “Penciled In” on my Calendar to try and show for this
It is of course the same day as the Club Meeting
if my Calendar is correct?Cheers!
Steve KG5VK
Yes, like many weekend Amateur Radio functions, the RRVARA club meeting is on the Saturday of both the ARRL (Summer) Field Day and also Winter Field Day. Also the Emory Hamfest. And other things.
SAVARA (Greenville) meets on Thursday evenings and the Hopkins County club has started meeting again and changed the meeting day from Saturday to Thursday evening.
We all have to make choices in life, please come out if you can.
I am starting to look over and make plans for Winter Field Day. My spot is reserved at Cooper Lake state park – Doctors Creek site 36. I had a few questions I wanted to ask about the rules.
Do we want to be mobile or indoor? I’ll set up outside, weather permitting, but then go into the RV after dark.
Bands for multiplies – I can do 40, 20, 15, 10, 2 and 70cm (I don’t expect any action on 2 or 70cm)
QSO points – I’m defiantly not doing CW, but I will hopefully try some other form of digital. (rtty or JS8call)
Power – I’ll be 100w
Alternative power – I will run of battery for as long as I can, but my generator doesn’t work to recharge the laptop battery. Might be hard for me to add to this objective.
We’ll be Away form home, so that one’s in the bag.
Deploy multiple antennas – I’ll set up a 40-10 ocf dipole and a 80-10 efhw. the efhw only does 30 watts though.
Winlink – I’ll have to sucker someone into returning an email, but i’ll be set up.
Operate 6 continuous hours – I can do this. And, keep the snacky snacks close.
That’s my questions and thoughts as I start getting my equipment ready. Looking forward to it, and hope the weather is decent!
Mark,
I plan to go and be there at least part of the day. Between now and then, even with the busy holidays and your retail uptick, I would like to set up a time where I can meet you and tinker with the generator.
I am no ace small engine mechanic, but I suspect the carburetor is gummed up. Those gensets are supposed to be run under max load for an hour every month. Few people do that and the combination of disuse and ethanol gas, which attracts water; I have personally had lots of issues with this. I think with some fuel treatment in the tank, and us thoroughly cleaning the carb with Berryman B12, we might be able to get it running. Let’s talk about a day to give it a try.
Phillip
Mark,
My answers below:
Do we want to be mobile or indoor? I’ll set up outside, weather permitting, but then go into the RV after dark.
We will be indoor because Cindy and I will be in a cabin.Bands for multiplies – I can do 40, 20, 15, 10, 2 and 70cm (I don’t expect any action on 2 or 70cm)
I plan to bring HF-6 meters only. I will probably have a 2m/70cm FM radio parked on the 146.760 repeater.QSO points – I’m defiantly not doing CW, but I will hopefully try some other form of digital. (rtty or JS8call)
We will probably do SSB only unless I get real busy learning some of the digital stuff.Power – I’ll be 100w
We will have only 1 radio at 100 watts.Alternative power – I will run of battery for as long as I can, but my generator doesn’t work to recharge the laptop battery. Might be hard for me to add to this objective.
I can bring an extra 12v 100 AH lithium battery. Also a 12v to 110 volt inverter if that’s what your laptop needs. You can swap batteries and recharge from AC and still be called battery powered. Go figure…We’ll be Away form home, so that one’s in the bag.
Yes.Deploy multiple antennas – I’ll set up a 40-10 ocf dipole and a 80-10 efhw. the efhw only does 30 watts though.
I plan to use only one end-fed antenna that goes down to either 160 or 80 meters, I forget which.Winlink – I’ll have to sucker someone into returning an email, but i’ll be set up.
Good.Operate 6 continuous hours – I can do this. And, keep the snacky snacks close.
Yes, snacks! And meals!!<p style=”text-align: center;”>I plan on being there. I want to bring my bus yo have somewhere to work from. I will have my 100ah battery setup there as well as a solar panel.</p>
I am not sure on antennas. I will have to sort that out.i can do all bands but no cw for me. I would love to learn some of the digital while i am there.
Guys,
I am having some trouble loading the very first link above. I think maybe their redirect isn’t working correctly. Their actual website is https://winterfieldday.org/, so a .org and not a .com. See if that works better for you. Charles, did you go and register the Club WFD details with them? UPDATE: I was told in another conversation that we are indeed registered.
Thanks,
Phillip
Phillip,
That URL will work with .com or .org
and it appears from the map there that
https://www.facebook.com/K5GVL/
Is the only club registered so far at Cooper lake, However I am a Boobie at the Winter Field Day thing
So, I good be very wrongI am sure Charles will educate us after he finishes working THE ARRL 10 M contest this weekend
My bet is he ends up with a great score.
Cheers!
Steve
KG5VKSteven,
When I made the post the .com was not pointing to the other one, but it is now. Maybe a hosting issue that has been resolved. In any case, it is working. Of note, we do the same thing. If you click on http://www.rrvarc.com see what happens. 😉 I never understood why our website was set up using a radio call sign that is not intuitive at all to non-hams…or hams for that matter. It also doesn’t just roll off of one’s tongue. LOL Next year we will swap it around and make the Club address http://www.rrvarc.org and any combination of wb5rdd.xxx or rrvarc.xxx will get you to our site.
As for the Winter Field Day, I don’t do Facebook so I went to my “go to guy” for such things, Mark Johnson (W5PTX). He says:
We are indeed on the map as Red River Valley ARC with the W5W call. It’s not showing our about info yet. Maybe Monday, but it’s not super important. It’s a generic invite type message. Sabine Valley will be on the other side of the lake. We all should be good to go.
I plan to attend the Club meeting and then take a drive down there. I may stop and get a big bag of burgers and take those with me. But I’ll plan on going down there for awhile. I will encourage a caravan from the meeting if I can get any takers.
Phillip
We are going to try and live stream the club meeting while we are out there. Just in case thats keeping folks from wanting to show up.
Cabin #2, the other cabin at the park, shows to be available as of 1/16/2024 in case you are interested. This will keep you warm and out of the weather for the weekend.
So, a few notes about WFD.
The WFD rules cover some basic items:
· Class: this is the number of transmitters that can transmit at the same time. We will figure that out before we go on the air.
· Categories: Since Cindy and I will be in a cabin the group will be operating under the INDOOR category.
That’s really about it.
WFD has what they call “Additional Objectives”. There are no extra points for these “Additional Objectives”, they are just things you might want to consider to do to prove to yourself that you can to it. These include 100% alternative power, operate away from home, deploy multiple antennas and other items, you can read the WFD rules yourself to see.
For the summer Field Day we normally operate off of “emergency power”, using the gasoline powered generator.
WFD has an Additional Objective of “Operate 100% on Alternative Power”. When they say 100% they seem to mean it because all station equipment must be run from battery power including radios, accessories, lights, HEATERS, etc.
There is no way we can run heaters from battery power and as there are no extra points for doing so Cindy and I will not be operating from battery power only. We will have our radio connected to our 12V 100AH battery with the charger connected to the battery and charging while we operate. I know that we could run the station from the battery for a few hours and can run the inverter connected to my electric car and continue to operate for many days but I’m not going to go to the trouble to connect all that up (I did last year) if there are no extra points to do it.
Cindy and I are going to operate one radio, her IC-7300 with an end-fed antenna and a logging computer. My goal is to keep it simple this year.
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