One of the things we strive to provide as hams is a way to communicate under less than ideal conditions. This could mean having to setup temporary antennas and bringing radios to a completely new operating location setup in the field. Historically, the ARRL has sponsored what it calls ARRL Field Day in June but for the last 14 years, there has been another event that takes place in winter–Winter Field Day. Winter Field Day is a 24 hour operating exercise where hams across the country go to the field, setup portable stations with temporary antennas. The rules are available here: https://winterfieldday.org/sop.php

Winter Field Day is an event very similar to the June ARRL Field Day except—you guessed it—it’s held in Winter. This year the dates are January 25 & 26, 2025. This is a joint operation with the Clearwater Amateur Radio Society (CARS), the St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club (SPARC) and the Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club (UPARC). The following are the important details you need to know in planning your attendance at Winter field Day (WFD):

• When: Saturday January 25, 2025 through Sunday January 26th, 2025. Setup begins at approximately 8:00 AM on Saturday 25-Jan with operating starting at 2:00 PM (this year we can start operating as early as 11:00 if set up but we are shooting for our usual 2:00 PM). Tear down starts at 2:00 PM on Sunday 26-Jan.
• Where: Clearwater Fire Training Facility, 1716 Belcher Rd. N Building C. Clearwater FL 33765 (this is on Belcher Road south of Sunset Point Road and north of NE Coachman Rd in Clearwater.
• Food: All meals and drinks (water and soft drinks) are provided (with Saturday night dinner at 6:00 PM where you bring a side dish to share).
  Meals include:
  • Breakfast on Saturday (we usually have doughnuts around for the setup crew).
  • Lunch on Saturday (typically burgers and hotdogs from the grill)
  • Dinner on Saturday night (menu still TBD)
  • Breakfast on Sunday morning (Clearwater Bagels, cream cheese, etc.)
  • Lunch on Sunday (Everything left and more burgers and hotdogs)
• You MUST sign up for meals. We need accurate counts for meals so please use the following link to register yourself and your guest if any: https://forms.gle/Lpm7jeWFRahGXGpK8

If you have been to ARRL Field Day before, there are several differences from the ARRL Field Day. Notably, there are only four classes of operation: (Outdoor, Indoor, Mobile and Home). We will be operating 3 HF stations capable of SSB, Digital modes like PSK31 and CW plus a satellite station. As with summer Field Day, you will work stations operating from home, indoors, mobile and outdoors in non-traditional settings. But when you work outside stations in Minnesota, please try not to comment on how it is a chilly 65 degrees here. They may not share your amusement. 🙂

We have the radio and computers already arranged and a pretty good handle on the supplies as this is the sixth event we have done from this facility.

We need people!

We need people to help with putting things up, people to help with food, operators and people to help with teardown. Setup begins at 8:00 AM on Saturday 1/25. Three radios will be going 24 hours from 2:00 PM Saturday to 2:00 PM on Sunday so we need people that can operate. No experience is necessary. If you are brand new to ham radio, you are welcome to come out and with a little training; you get to operate the radios. Not just watch but grab a microphone and operate! If that thought scares you, we have people to help youget on the air. This is a learning environment and training new people is our most important goal–well plus have fun.

If you are interested in operating portable (like Parks-on-the-Air), you will get first hand experience in how to setup a station outside with no other infrastructure. Additionally, if you are interested in Emergency Communications, you have the opportunity to setup in an unusual location and operate radios in the field. Note that is just like people had to do in countless hurricanes so if you are an EMCOMM operator, this event is tailor made for you. Plus you will be on the grounds of the premiere fire training facility in the area.

We have a great facility in the Clearwater Fire Training Center including access to the classrooms, rest rooms, showers, kitchen, etc. However, all operating is outside (tentatively but could change depending upon setup and teardown commitments) with portable antennas. While this is winter in Florida, we hope the weather is nice but past year’s Winter Fields were cold and rainy so you never know what you will get.

Here is a Google Map to the location. This is centrally located to most club members in the county so we hope the facility proves to be a success for all.

The transceivers used are three Elecraft K3 radios. We use networked computers for logging with the TR4W contest logger. We even keep an online scoreboard at the facility and one you can watch from the club websites.

You are welcome to download TR4W and play with it to get used to the software but it is pretty easy to use. For those that may be used to N3FJP, Win-Test or N1MM, this is a different program but we have found it to be the easiest to operate–especially for newer people. It is very forgiving and makes it easy to enter the QSO information. Besides, when you go to a new station to operate, adapting to what is used at that site is a very good skill to have. Future club meetings before the event will walk through basic operation.

Sign up is now open here: https://forms.gle/Lpm7jeWFRahGXGpK8

Please sign up and let us know you are coming along with the answers to the other questions such as your availability, when you can operate, meals and other info. Please sign up as soon as possible.  Don’t forget to bring anything you might need for the weekend (we recommend a camp chair and cool weather gear). Bring your own headphones. For hygienic reasons, we do not share headphones. We have adapters so even if you only have a set of wired earbuds, bring them along. We have desk mics for all the radios including both foot switches and hand PTT switches. We have Radio Sport cables and Heil adapters so if you have a boom mic, we should be able to set you up to operate your favorite headset.

About 3 days before the event, an email will go out to everyone signed up with more info about the facility, meals, operating hints and other useful information we have accumulated over the years.

Operator sign-up is reserved to day of the event only. This is to give the people that setup the first chance at sign-up spots. Before dinner on Saturday, operating shifts are just 30 minutes to give everyone a chance. So if you want to sign up for a spot out of the gate, the best thing to do is please come down early to work on setup. But don’t worry, with three stations, we have plenty of spots to operate. We have never had someone go home not being able to operate.

Past years have been quite a bit of fun. This is a great facility and we look forward to spending a great weekend with members of all three clubs and guests. We hope to see you there. If you have questions about Winter Field Day, please email ny4i@nullny4i.com.