On January 25th & 26th, 2025, local ham radio clubs participated in the annual Winter Field Day event in Clearwater, Florida. The day started out as planned with people gathering at 8:00 AM–some even earlier–at the Clearwater Fire Training Center for Winter Field Day 2025. This was a joint effort between the Clearwater Amateur Radio Society, the St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club and the Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club. This was the first time SPARC had been back in a few years for Winter Field Day and given the number of members from different clubs, it was great to have everyone back together again.

Due to the forecasted weather being a bit too chilly overnight (yes, I know, it’s called Winter Field Day but we live in Florida for a reason…), the decision was made to have Winter Field Day indoors this year. We setup in the standard inside configuration we use for ARRL Field Day.

Thanks to everyone that took pictures.

We had all three stations capable of operating SSB with 2 stations pulling double-duty as CW and one as Digital (PSK31). Being Field Day, we always have a great spread of food to keep everyone fed. Ron and Ruth Appel and their team do a great job of organizing the food portion of Field Day.

HF Operating

Summary

We managed to work a total of 1326 contacts on 6 different bands (2M not shown in the table below). We contacted stations in all the US sections/states except Hawaii as well as all but a few Canadian sections.

SSB (Phone)

We had approximately 1100 contacts on SSB (phone) with Jeff NE4C making 545 QSOs and Bruce K2BHS making 231 contacts. Other operators can be seen in the table below:

CW (Morse Code)

Dave KR4U made 124 CW contacts with Pat AA0O adding 59 CW contacts and Tom NY4I adding a few more.

Dave KR4U working the paddle at the CW station

The short tower with the hex beam and wire antennas

Satellite Station

The Arrow antenna on a Yaesu Azimuth/Elevation rotator for tracking the satellites.

Using Ryan AF4O’s very portable satellite station, Tom NY4I managed to make 6 satellite contacts using RS-44 for SSB contacts and PO-101 for an FM contact

Education

Fred W2SUB introducing Field Day to guests

One of our important goals is to always introduce new people to ham radio. With either encouraging a new ham to pick up the microphone and make contacts, offer a few pointers on how to operate the most efficiently or introduce ham radio to someone for the very first time, education and training is why we do all of this (well the food is great too!). Fred W2SUB conducted his usual training sessions. While we do not get points for it like in Summer ARRL Field Day, points are not the motivator anyway.

Winter Field Day Objectives

Winter Field Day switched to an objective-based multiplier system. Possible objectives were as follows:

Operate 100% on alternative power
Operate away from home
Deploy multiple antenna
Make an FM satellite contact
Make a SSB or CW Satellite Contact
Send and receive at least one Winlink email
Copy the Winter Field Day Special Bulletin
Operate on at least six different bands
Use multiple modes
Operate the event QRP
Operate six continuous hours during the event

Of the above objectives, we achieved them all except operating 100% on alternative power and operate the event QRP. Jason N4BOZ sent and received a WinLink message on 2m from the site, Tom NY4I made a satellite contact on FM and SSB, Tom NY4I contacted a station on 2m 146.52 for the 6th band, we operated multiple modes with SSB, CW and PSK31, Tom NY4I copied the Winter Field Day Bulletin on Phone and CW and we operated 25 hours.

Oh the Food…

No one goes hungry at Field Day. Ron W4RFA and Ruth Appel lead a great team to help with the food. The clubs provided meals for Breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, lunch on Saturday (cooked by Dean N0OAC and Sarah N0UKS) and Sunday and Dinner on Saturday (along with the potluck). Other helpers included Karen Isak KQ4HNI, Beth Whidden (NY4I’s spouse) and Diane Friedman (K4SPF’s spouse).

Results

So how did we do? With the change in the scoring, it is hard to compare the points to last year, but contacts wise, we made more QSOs this year than last (1146 QSOs in 2024 Winter Field Day). The following table gives the break down of the contacts, bands and total points including the objective multipliers. We will see in a few months how we did as compared to other stations in the 3I (inside) class.

Picture Sliders

Click the arrows to scroll through the available pictures. Thanks to Bill Terry for the majority of these pictures.