Event Summary

There was some sunny weather forecast for Saturday June 22nd, 2024, and the weatherman was accurate! What a great weekend for Field Day!

This year brought 35 logged visitors, 30 of which were licensed, and were able to get 14 of those operators on the air, doing everything from CW to SSB to Digital! This year we were joined by members from the Virginia Tech club as well as the Floyd Amateur Radio Society!

The start was around 8:30am at the Randolph Park back shelter. The use of a generator wasn’t needed this year, as the shelter now has an outlet nearby, but we had a generator on stand-by just in case.

We had 3 stations on the air at the same time this year, swapping out time on different modes as well as an attempt at some additional VHF work. Heavy use if the Triplexers and the DX Commander were evident in the setup, and supplemental filtering was needed from some stub filters. Any field day activity with close transmitters will understand the issues faced, but we were able to get past them! Our CW out-of-towner Randal, WB4BBF came to help us out with our scoring as well.

Our Radio Rummage this year wasn’t quite as heavy with equipment, but there were still a few deals to be made!

Lunch was served at 1pm from the smoker of Len, KC5EJR as well as items brought by other members. I for one was a happy field day op with that smokey pulled pork going in my belly! There were lots of conversations to be had in catching up with each other. We all had a great time.

Transmissions were started at 2pm.

At 4pm, an education activity to show how a multiband trapped dipole is constructed and works by Christopher, K4HZ. Handouts were given out of information covered. There was a fun demonstration of the active elements using the club VNA for verification. We also attempted (and failed) at trying to be picked up via whisper. Either way, the activity was fun, and there was a lot of learning! You can find more information on the ARRL website here (https://www.arrl.org/hf-trap-antennas).

40 meters was again the workhorse with the most contacts. Using digital, we were able to scrounge out twenty-four contacts on 10 meters and ten on 6 meters!

There were a few downtimes throughout the evening as summertime storms made their way through the setup, but we kept the equipment dry and ready for the lightning to wonder off. We extended the hours to accommodate some others wishing to make the last few contacts. Teardown and packing up was completed around 3pm, and the event was drawn to a close.

This was another great event shared with the club, surrounding amateur radio operators, and family alike. I’m looking forward to more events in the future.