Winter Field Day 2020 is coming! The dates are January 24th – 26th, 2020. We had a lot of fun at Winter Field Day 2019 and we’re looking forward to the event again this year. The Nashua Area Radio Society will again be holding our operation at Keyes Memorial Park in Milford, NH. We are planning several new things this year. Here’s some more about our plans.
Our Planning Team
A team has been working on our plans for Winter Field Day (WFD) 2020 for over a month now. The planning leads include:
- Jerry Doty, K1OKD – WFD Overall Planning Leader
- Craig Bailey, N1SFD – Antennas and Power Chairperson
- Jon Turner, AC1EV – Station Chairperson
- John Slater, KB1EEU – Shelter Chairperson
- Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC – VHF+ Chairperson
Winter Field Day 2020 Plans?
With help from many other members, our Winter Field Day 2020 planning team is putting together a really cool operation. Some of the highlights include:
- We will be operating on all of the HF bands from 160m through 6m.
- Our antenna farm will include a 40 ft tower with a tri-bander and wire antennas for 80m and 40m
- Our antenna farm will also include a second 40m wire antenna (a Delta Loop) that will enable us to have two transmitters on 40m at the same time.
- We are planning an additional transceiver and we will be entering as a 5O (five Tx Outdoor) station this year
- We are adding quite a few new bands on VHF and above. We’ll be on 6m, 2m, 1.25m (222 MHz), 70cm, 33cm (902 MHz), and 23cm (1.2 GHz). We will have yagi antennas for all of these bands.
- John Slater is working on an improved shelter and heating system to keep us warm and dry
- We will be equipping Rover stations for the VHF+ bands (2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, and 23cm). These stations will have Phone, CW, and Digital capabilities. We hope this will provide opportunities for enhanced VHF+ activity for all of the Winter Field Day stations in our area.
- Our computer-controlled satellite ground station will be back
Upcoming Activities
We have several activities leading up to Winter Field Day 2020. All NARS members are invited to join us for these activities. Planned activities include:
- Saturday, November 23rd at 10 am – Yagi building party at AB1OC/AB1QB. We’ve secured several new Yagi’s to use for the VHF+ bands this year. We’ll be assembling the one for the 1.25m (220 MHz) band and testing in our shop. We’ll also recondition the driven element of a large 70cm yagi as well. This is a chance to see how a VHF+ weak signal antenna goes together.
- Friday November 29th at 9 am – VHF+ Mast Test at AB1OC/AB1QB. We are planning a second mast for our VHF+ antennas for Winter Field Day. During this session, we’ll be setting up the new mast with the antennas for 1.25m, 33cm, and 23cm to check it out and cut a new set of guy ropes.
- Tuesday, December 10th at 7 pm – Winter Field Day 2020 Tech Night. We will be covering all aspects of antenna building, station setup, and operating for Winter Field Day 2020 at our December Tech Night.
We are also planning station tests for our HF and VHF+ stations in the near future.
Signups for setup and operating during Winter Field Day will be available at our December Membership Meeting.
We hope you’ll join us for our Winter Field Day activities and operation!
Fred, AB1OC