ARRL Field Day 2016 
On Saturday-Sunday, June 25-26, 2016 HOTARC participated in a national annual special event sponsored by the ARRL. On Field Day ham radio operators across the country set up "emergency operations" and contact as many other stations as possible in a contest-like fashion. Folks began to arrive around 10:00 AM Saturday, and started erecting an "emergency operations center" with three radio stations capable of world-wide communications. At 1:00 PM, we began operating those stations—without commercial electricity, continuously, for 24 hours—wrapping up operations at 1 PM on Sunday. This year we returned to our favorite location at Hewitt Park, in Hewitt, TX, to demonstrate our ham radio skills in action, enjoy food/fellowship with fellow hams, and welcome visitors and VIPs. Many youngsters were able to talk into a ham radio microphone for the first time to someone on the opposite side of the country—without a cell phone! Since this is also a national contest event, we kept records of all our contacts and submit the data to the ARRL to see how we fared in the competition aspect of the event. Clint AE5CA greatly helped the logging effort by setting up a "Ham Mesh" wi-fi network that connected all the logging stations' laptops, permitting a real-time analysis of our scoring, not to mention connecting each station with a private-line telephone system and live video feeds between each station! Ain't technology great?! ☺ Here's an overhead view of Hewitt Park, with the layout of our stations, antennas, and other equipment. The Field Day Rules specify all radios and antennas must lie within a 1000-foot diameter circle.
I would like to thank all that took part in supporting our 2016 Field Day, especially our FD Chairmen: Clint Anderson, AE5CA and Lynn Gustafson, KD5DZU. Let me take this opportunity to also thank:
John Stewart KE5UBM brought his family out to field day. With help from several members, his daughter, Sara, made 20 contacts on our HF GOTA station. Because of Field Day, she plans to start working on her Technician license! So, thanks to ALL the HOTARC members who made this red-letter weekend a great success! And a special thanks for the mealtime foods—from Waco and Hewitt providers—it was great! We all give a BIG round of applause to Bill Feltenberger KE5UEW for coordinating the food selection and delivery to our HOTARC Field Day site. And didn't I see some pizza boxes, too? Thanks for that, too! Food is a most essential part of Field Day, and it was done GREAT! HOTARC Field Day 2016 Photos(Click thumbnails below for full size versions. Thanks to KC5PRG and AE5CA for photos!) |
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