Snake River Amateur Radio Club  

             Winter Field Day 2024

   This year's Winter Field Day was again held at the Wilder fire station.

The Wilder fire department, along with Fire Chief Steve Rhodes, have been very welcoming to us over the last few years and we can't thank them enough for providing us this space for our events.

   Usually, we are fighting snow, wind and freezing temperatures to set up equipment. Not so this year. Temps were mild (for January) and there was no snow in sight all weekend. That alone made us happy operators for sure.

   It did rain, though. And rain. And rain. And... you get the picture. Mostly, it was an annoyance, but in at least one case it was destructive. It appeared that the 9:1 balun used by Bob, W7RLS, was not as waterproof as advertised and decided to expire just as the contest started.

   Fortunately, there was a spare on hand and he was soon back in the hunt.

If you made a CW contact with us for this event it was with Jim, W7TF, operating Bob's IC-706 setup thanks to friends with spare parts.

   Dinner on Saturday night was a chilli feed with our cast iron cooks' infamous "Mystery Meat Chilli." Along with some really good french bread garlic toast. 

   We ended up with around 120 contacts total, which was pretty good considering the tiny little QRP signal we were putting out. The total score has yet to be determined until we figure out the bonuses, but who cares? It was, and always will be, just for the fun of it. See y'all out there next time. 73!

^^ Some of us set up. Some of us sit and watch.

^^ Some of us set up. And some of us don't get the hint :-)

^^ Steve, WB7VEQ, up and running with his little 20 watt Xuegu? portable HF radio. Easy setup anywhere.

^^ Andrew, KJ7IGE was one of our phone operators and did an excellent job of it all weekend.

^^ Matt, KI7KZA, our fearless (fearful?) leader taking notes, or maybe just checking email, while the grunts do the work. :-)

^^ Jim, W7TF and Bob, W7RLS, figuring out where the scoring error is that they made with a couple of unique contacts. (Yep. That one really was VT, not UT guys!)

^^ One of many issues that plagued our first field event in seven months. How many hams does it take to do a voltage test at the back of a radio? Now we know.

^^ Meanwhile, you remember John? The guy who was diligently setting up his equipment while everybody else played? He is ignoring all the drama and quietly ticking away at the digital contacts and becoming one of the top scores of the day. Good work John!

^^ Working the graveyard shift at any K7SI field event can be a real killer, and nobody wants to do it. Thankfully, we have a new member who seems to actually enjoy it. He didn't even complain once!

  See y'all next time. 73!