Well, another Field Day is in the bag. This year our club pulled out all the stops and showed the community what amateur radio and Field Day is all about. Setting up in a large public park in the Wausau area, the Wisconsin Valley Radio Association not only had their Field Day operations on the air, but the club also held their first ever Emergency Preparedness Expo and invited community disaster services groups and government agencies to demonstrate their talents and educate the community on the importance of making a plan and being prepared for the unexpected.
The Emergency Preparedness Expo was attended by the Marathon/Oneida County Bomb Squad, Weston Police Department, K9 Search and Rescue Groups, Weston Fire Department, American Red Cross, Catholic Charities Disaster Response, National Weather Service, and Marathon County Emergency Management. We had an appearance by the Aspirus Hospital helicopter. The expo was a great success and made an important connection to the public between amateur radio and their served agencies. Next Year’s event should even be better.
Field Day operation itself went very well. Besides the triband beam pictured, we had a 150 foot dipole, 6m beam, 2m yagi, 440 yagi, a couple of Buddy Poles (both commercial and homebrew), and a Maldol HV-8U pressed into service. We even has a KB9VBR J-Pole Antenna attached to the Winlink station for passing our NTS traffic. The hot bands seemed to be 15m, 20m, and 75m. 15 and 20 went well into the night and 80 pretty much stayed open for us the whole weekend. 6 meters was dead, which was a bummer as when that band is a major points builder for us when it is open. After all was said in done, we still managed to make about 311 contacts over the weekend.
As you can tell, the WVRA is more concerned about the social aspects of Field Day than trying to rack up a lot of points. We manage to have lots of fun in what usually turns out to be the keynote event for the club. If anyone heard station W9NA over the weekend and would like a QSO card, please QSL with a SASE to WVRA, PO Box 363, Wausau, WI 54402
Here’s a few photographs from this year’s Field Day event. Click on more to enjoy!
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