Posts published in “Station Building”

Only 16 Days left to register to ensure your meals

Do you like operating in the field but hate dripping in sweat while setting up antennas? Does the idea of enduring another Field Day constantly fighting off every mosquito in Tampa Bay make you wish they held Field Day in January? Well, you’re in luck! Winter Field Day is an event very similar to the June ARRL Field Day  except—you guessed it—it’s held in Winter. Specifically January 25 & 26, 2020. This is the third time SPARC is participating in Winter Field Day and it is a joint operation with the Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club (UPARC) and the Clearwater Amateur Radio Society (CARS). The event will be held at the Clearwater Fire Training Facility on Belcher Road south of Sunset Point Road in Clearwater. Prior efforts were a great success. You can read about that here.

Winter Field Day is a 24 hour operating exercise where hams across the country go to the field, setup portable stations running on emergency power with temporary antennas. This event is not sponsored by the ARRL but the Winter Field Day Association instead. It has been operating since 2007 and gets bigger each year. There are several differences from the ARRL Field Day. Notably, there are only three classes of operation: (Outdoor, Indoor and Home). We will be operating outdoors (under cover) with 3 stations capable of SSB, digital modes like PSK31 and CW plus a satellite station. We have some preliminary plans but the most important thing we need now is for people to register. You can sign up by clicking here. As with summer Field Day, you will work stations operating from home and also indoors in non-traditional settings. But when you work outside stations in Minnesota, please try not to comment on how it is a chilly 65 degrees here. They may not share your amusement. 🙂

We have the radio and computers secured and a pretty good handle on the supplies as this is the fifth event we have done from this facility. We need people to help with putting things up, some people to help with food and of course, operators. Setup will begin at 9:00 AM on Saturday, 1/25. 3 radios will be going 24 hours from 2:00 PM Saturday to 2:00 PM on Sunday so we need people that can operate. No experience is necessary. If you are brand new to ham radio, you are welcome to come out and with a little training; you get to operate the radios. If you are interested in operating portable, you will get first hand experience in how to setup a station outside with no other infrastructure. Additionally, if you are interested in Emergency Communications, you have the opportunity to setup in a unusual location, operating radios on generator power. Note that is just like people had to do in Houston and Puerto Rico after the hurricanes so if you are an EMCOMM operator, this event is tailor made for you. Plus you will be on the grounds of the premiere fire training facility in the area.

As you may know, SPARC has scaled back its outside ARRL Field Day operations in June due to the difficulty of setting up the portable antennas in the heat—we’re not getting any younger. This is the perfect opportunity for anyone that misses that experience of setting up temporary antennas and operating radios in outside. The bonus is that instead of just one club, we have members of all different experience levels from all three clubs. Of course, we have some creature comforts in that we can use the facilities inside the Fire Training center, but all the operating is outside on generator power. While this is winter in Florida, you never know. Last year’s Winter Field Day was cold and rainy but very pleasant the year before so you never know what you will get.

Here is a Google Map to the location. This is centrally located to all three club’s members so we hope the facility proves to be a success for all.

Please sign up and let us know if you can bring anything. Again, we need mostly people to setup and operate. Don’t forget to bring anything you might need for the weekend. We have the radios in the form of an Elecraft K3 for CW/SSB and Digital, another K3 for SSB and a Kenwood TS590S for SSB. We also have computers.  So please sign up now by clicking here.

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