Rich AA2MF operating all 5 FT8 positions on 5 different bands early Sunday Morning
Field Day produced good results for SPARC. The group of operators listed below worked a total of 1643 QSOs. Of those 759 were made by CW, 702 by FT8/4 , and 182 by SSB. Our score based on QSOs alone was 6,208. Dave KR4U added 100 points to that total by copying the ARRL Field Day Message. Another 50 points was added by submitting our results on ARRL’s submission page.
FD rules allow any club member to operate any class under their own call and have their total QSOs added to the SPARC station score to be used in the Club Competition. Dave KR4U, John KI4UIP, Carol AB4YI, and Josef KQ4GAH added points from their home stations.
SPARC Field Day will be on June 24-25th at our club station location, DMI Research, 6699 90th Ave N, Pinellas Park, FL. We’ll start at 12pm Saturday with station familiarization and a little practice, the on-the-air operating event starts at 2pm Saturday and runs through 2pm Sunday.
We’ll be operating as 4-Delta with stations on SSB, CW, and Digital(FT8, etc). We’ll be using Yaesu FT-1000 radios and N1MM logging software. Operation will be indoors with Air Conditioning.
If you are planning to attend, please fill out the form using the link below so we know how much food to get.
Please bring your own headphones. You’re welcome to bring your HT radios but please no HF radio transmissions on-site from personal radios without organizing with the current operating team so we don’t get interfernce.
Allow a few minutes after submitting the form for your callsign to show in the list.
During my research for the update to the SPARC History page, I came across the Year in Review post from our previous Club President Bob N2ESP and that inspired me to write one for this year. I feel that SPARC had a great 2022 and 2023 is looking good too.
We started out the year with Winter Field Day, collaborating with CARS and UPARC, the event was setup at the Clearwater Fire Training center. Due to forecasted low temperatures and high winds, the decision was made to move the event indoors rather than setup outside like the typical WFD setup we’ve done there previously.
In February, we had our traditional SPARC photo at noon on Satruday outside the main vendor building at Hamcation in Orlando. This meetup offers a good opportunity for club members to show off their new purchases at Florida’s biggest ham fest. This year we even got a short video. We had our after holidays party at Kristina’s Cafe which got a good turn out.
We purchased a new (to us) tower to replace the club station tower that was damaged during a tornado in early 2020. We also replaced the leaning tower that was supporting the end of the dipole with a more substantial one. In April, we attached the log periodic antenna which got us back on the air. Also in April we had our first SPARC in the Park event at Sawgrass Lake Park. This is an official Parks on the Air park K-6700 so it’s always good for a pileup. After some POTA, we did a fox hunt hosted by William Gauzens W4WYR.
In May, we moved our meetings from the church at 5th Ave N and 49th St N back to the club station location at DMI Research in Pinellas Park. We switched the live feed of the meetings from Zoom to YouTube, thanks to Billy KN4LUZ, you can watch them on his YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@kn4luz
In an effort to increase club participation, we hosted ARRL Field Day at DMI. To test the new tower and make things a little more straightforward, we operated indoors with commercial power with 3 stations in the 3-Delta category. We took 2nd place in that category and had 1,455 QSOs.
With the station tested out from Field Day, W4CU and AA2MF organized some operating events. The first was NAQP RTTY in July, then NAQP SSB in August, then CQ WW RTTY in September, which was cut short due to the approaching Hurricane Ian. Luckily we didn’t get a direct hit. November brought the ARRL Phone Sweepstakes in which the team was able to get a “Clean Sweep“, working all 84 sections of the US and Canada.
In the week leading up to SPARCfest in November we had quite a bit of rain that flooded out Freedom Lake Park. We were able to work around it by setting up on the roads around the field. Attendance was good and many deals were had.
Early morning SPARCfest 2022
SPARCfest 2022
Our final SPARC in the Park event was again at Sawgrass Lake Park in December (being a POTA park really makes the on-the-air activities exciting).
KO4CEE and W7WMS raising a 2m antenna to get some local simplex contacts
Also in December, we completed the electrical move of the station to a new room inside DMI. The station is currently off the air while the move is completed but it will be back better than ever soon enough. We had a failure of the 220m repeater which was repaired by Bob, KC4SXO, Mike, KN4LVA and Ed, NZ1Q.
Thanks to all the club members that helped make these events a success and to everyone who participated, we couldn’t do it with you. Have a Happy New Year and we’ll see you in 2023 for more radio fun!
SPARC’s 2022 Field Day was a successful one. We had 40 people on the sign-in sheet and 21 operator callsigns made QSOs in the log. After removing duplicates we made 1,455 QSOs (statistics breakdown below). Band conditions made for slow going on Saturday but things really picked up Sunday morning.
Overall the stations worked well, having the same radio at each station made it easy to transition between them. We had some issues with the stats screen not keeping up with the QSOs, FT8 locking up N1MM occasionally, and sorting out the PTT for the mic on SSB, other than that it was really smooth. We didn’t end up getting the satellite contact after 2 attempts, though during the 4am ISS pass we did hear him say “Welcome to the International Space Station” and have a QSO with a youth operator.
Thanks to everyone who helped make the event possible and to everyone who attended. Rich AA2MF for all his work setting up the computers and for the use of his equipment, Dave K4RU, John KI4UIP and Floyd KY4MG for getting DMI ready, Charles W4BPP for working on maximizing the bonus points and picking up food, Norm KI4IJA for cranking up the tower, Tom W4CU for keeping us on the best bands, Lisa KC1YL for breakfast, N4GD for sending the radiogram to the section manager and Ed NZ1Q for putting together the YouTube video, Bob N2ESP, Pete KB9LXM and Zack KO4WPO for photos.
SPARC Field Day will be on June 25-26th at our club station location, DMI Research, 6699 90th Ave N, Pinellas Park, FL. We’ll start at 9am Saturday with setup, the on-the-air operating event starts at 2pm Saturday and runs through 2pm Sunday.
We’ll be operating as 3-Delta with 1 station each on SSB, CW, and Digital(FT8, etc). We’ll be using Yaesu FT-1000 radios. Operation will be indoors with Air Conditioning.
If you are planning to attend, please fill out the form using the link below so we know how much food to get.
Operators of the SPARC station were: AAØO AA2MF AB4YI KB1EBC KB9LX KD2UDU KF4TYA KI4UIP KN4YQC KO4WPO KQ4DVG KQ4DXM KR4U N4GRC W1EES W4BOO W4CU
