Anyone try the SPAR Winter Field Day

[N8UZE]

We had a blast. A nice cabin overlooking Lake Huron.

[KD0BIK]

I did...I setup at a local park just South of Denver. I managed about 16 contacts mostly PSK. It was a lot of fun.

Jerry

[N8UZE]

Did you work our club (K8UO) ? We were CW and voice, no digital this time. Perhaps next year.

[KD0BIK]

No I didn't...

[KU0DM]

I played around for a bit.

Took my 897, a battery, and some wire to a park nearby and operated for a bit.
Started feeling bad, then came home and operated a bit from the home QTH.

I had fun though, and it was even warm here! About 50F, so it was nice.

73

[KB3LIX]

Not this year.
Spent most of the available weekend time working the BARTG RTTY contest.

Maybe next year.

[KB1OJU]

i operated for a few hours...but for me the band was terribly dead, up in maine i wasnt hearing a single thing for some reason! hahahahaha, even after checking the shack setup a gu-jillion (yup, thats a number to me :) ) times, i saw that everything was hooked up correctly. so i figured eh' ill just get on the radio another time :)



hope you all had fun though :)

73 DE KB1OJU

[KU0DM]

hahahahaha, even after checking the shack setup a gu-jillion (yup, thats a number to me :) ) times, i saw that everything was hooked up correctly.

LOL, that's what I did the first time I got on HF.

I didn't get an immediate answer to my call, like I'd seen many times over, and I got worried something was wrong. :rolleyes:

[kr2d]

Not me. Spent my available radio time on the CQ 160m CW contest - a huge challenge with my meager station. Were there any SPAR Winter FD participants active on 160m CW? I didn't hear any.

[N8CPA]

I was 1H, CW only--and I only heard two calling WFD, so I worked them. Otherwise, the bands sounded pretty dead around here.

[KC9ECI]

I did. Mike, N0EXE and I had the use of a cabin in Jackson County. No commercial power, so a deep cycle battery and occasional generator power provided us with our electrical needs. We worked the stations we heard, and that wasn't many. I tried calling CQ for a bit, but as I was getting over a cold, my voice just wasn't going to hold out doing that for long. The cabin is small and easily heated by the woodstove, but if you didn't get out of bed every two hours all night long to feed it some wood, it got mighty cold mighty fast. There was one harrowing moment, when I went out on the small enclosed porch to get a beer and discovered our supply had frozen solid. Other than that, it was fun if you don't factor in the 3 and a half foot deep snow we had to clear trails through on one side of the cabin to the woodshed and again on the other side of the cabin to the outhouse and electrical hookups.

[AF9J]

Hi Tom,

As you know, I was also doing the CQ 160m contest, but I did try Winter Field Day in the 1H category. The problem was, that condx. were lousy all weekend for me. I only heard one Winter Field Day station, and by the time I was done loading the antenna up, he was gone. I heard a few stations QSOing with Winter Field Day stations, but I didn't hear the stations. BTW, 160 wasn't much better. Signal strengths were down all weekend for me. Has SPAR considered doing like the state QSO parties, and listing specific freqs.? It might help activity.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[kn4ds]

Did you work our club (K8UO) ? We were CW and voice, no digital this time. Perhaps next year.

I played with it for a while on Saturday afternoon... didn't find many stations calling CQ at all...

I did work K8UO on 40 meters SSB...

That was the only 40m contact, had 5 others on 20m.

I saw a couple calling on PSK during the evening, but couldn't get 'em, so I played in the BARTG RTTY contest for a while.

[N8UZE]

We did have to work pretty hard. Our club made 258 contacts for all stations combined. Of those 208 were on 40m. On 40m that was basically about 12 contacts per hour not counting the hours we slept.

We elected to call CQ as we felt there wouldn't be much percentage in hunting and pouncing due both to conditions and the fact this contest has only been in existence for a couple of years. We also included at the end of our CQ call the phrase "anybody anywhere" since we had a feeling that, being a relatively new contest, there would not be a lot of participants.

Most of the stations we worked were not in the contest and so we coached them through the exchange. They were just "passing by", heard us, and elected to answer. For example, one guy was just testing a radio he had been working on.

Since there was usually some time between contacts, we took the opportunity to explain Winter Field Day to those stations who called us.

Another odd thing happened. Just before the end of the contest (about 10 minutes until 12), all of a sudden we had a pile up. We had just about given up on making our goal of 200 for the contest when I started working them one after another. We met our goal with a few to spare.

[KC2ESD]

I listened for WFD stations, none heard then I got spanked with s9 noise on 20, 40, and 80 Meters, I spent the weekend working on the house and talking on 2 Meters. Oh well.

Rick KC2ESD

[kg4kww]

I listen heard a few stations calling field day and worked a couple of them.
Didn't hear you Tom.