Field Day June 22 & 23, 2024

This past Saturday and Sunday, June 22 & 23, the WTRA Club & WT ARES Group participated in the annual ARRL Field Day.  All who attended experienced what was one of the best Field Days we’ve ever had.  This year we operated from the Isle of Wight Rescue Squad which is the temporary IOW County Emergency Operations Center.  The Club members installed and operated an End Fed Long Wire antenna for HF and a VHF/UHF vertical for communications to the IOW and Surry repeaters.  We were also able to connect to the IOW Digital Node with a mobile antenna.  The HF bands cooperated on Saturday with 10, 15 and 20 meters open to most of the U.S.  Sunday was mostly 15 and 20 meters.  40 and 80 meters were noisy but we made a few on 40.  Operating a total of 14 hours, we made a total of 172 contacts with 35 states on HF!  Since about half of the operators had never worked Field Day before, it was a learning experience but once they got the hang of it, did rather well.

Along with the HF station, WB4GUH operated a digital station and passed Winlink messages through the IOW Digital Node to other Tidewater stations and also to the ARRL Virginia Section Manager.  KQ4BET also had his portable digital station up and operating.  And we also had one of the IOW VHF/UHF/Digital Deployment Cases set up for demonstration.

KZ4AT Chairman, made sure everything came together once we were ready to operate.  WB4BYR took care of getting the publicity information out to the local media.  W4RBH did the safety checks before we started.  WB4KZI, KQ4BET and KZ4AT made sure we had plenty of food, drinks and ice to get us through the operating hours.  Most all helped initially with getting the antennas up, and taking everything down once Field Day was over.

A special thanks to Isle of Wight County, Will Drewery, IOW Emergency Coordinator and Brian Carroll, Rescue Squad Chief,  for allowing us to use the IOW Rescue Squad Building for this year’s event.  The temperature outside Both days was 95+ degrees!  And being able to operate inside in the air conditioned room was a life saver!  We always appreciate their support.  Here's a list of Club and ARES members who participated in the 2024 Field Day event.

Steve, KZ4AT Field Day Chairman
Robert, KQ4BET
Dick, W4RBH
Kurt, KN4SJC
Mike, KC8GZK
Paul, KO4RYU
Dean, WB4GUH
Don, WB4BYR
Duffy, KM4KBL
Rob, KJ4HMZ
Randy, WB4KZI

Thanks again to all who helped make this year’s Field Day a success and look forward to making plans for next year.  I think everyone gained much experience and knowledge this year and will be looking forward to participating in 2025.  I’ll tally the points and let all know how we did soon.

73

Randy Grigg, WB4KZI
Vice President
Western Tidewater Radio Association

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WTRA Field Day Results

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WTRA Field Day Publicity