Winter Field Day 2017

Hello everyone,

Winter Field Day will take place this upcoming weekend, and once again the Annapolis Valley Amateur Radio Club will participate!

As described on the WFD web page, the purpose of Winter Field Day is “to foster Ham camaraderie, field operation, emergency operating preparedness, and just plain on the air, outdoor fun in the midst of winter for American, Canadian and DX Amateurs”. Disasters don’t always happen in the summer, and as providers of emergency communications capabilities, Amateurs need to be ready.
Last year, AVARC was the top station in the world in its category, and we intend to defend that placement. Don’t worry about freezing in a tent however! We will operate in the “Home” category, using my station. In recognition of the emergency preparedness aspect of the event however, we will power the equipment with a generator.

Winter Field Day will start at 1500 (3 PM) Saturday 28 January, and will finish up at 1500 the next day. All modes are permissible, so we need voice, CW and digital operators. If you would like to take part in the event, or simply want to drop by to see how Amateur Radio works, please contact me and I’ll fit you into the operating schedule.

This is a low intensity, relaxed contest, so there is no need to feel intimidated. I’ll have snacks and refreshments for those who drop by.
73
Al
VO1NO / VA1AVR

Field Day 2016 Results Published

Hello everyone,

The Field Day results have been published, and it looks like The Annapolis Valley Amateur Radio Club did very well!  Our score was 2276 points, placing us fifth overall in the ARRL Maritime Section. We actually had the second highest number of participants, and the third greatest number of QSOs – Well Done!

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Field Day 2016 Wrap Up

Hello everyone,

Well, that was one heck of an excellent weekend! Thanks so much to all those who participated and assisted in making Field Day 2016 a huge success!

We had two objectives for Field Day. The first was to practice those skills necessary to operate in an emergency – deploy to a remote location, set up effective stations without relying on commercial power, and make QSOs in an efficient manner. The second was to have a fun and interesting weekend. I can safely say that BOTH these objectives were met quite handily!

The setup crew started at 0830, and by noon had two towers in the air, complete with triband Yagis and inverted V antennas. The tents were easily set up, and by 1500 we had two stations in operation and a field galley set up. The logging software worked well, and our local network had very strong signals, thanks to our helical antennas – we probably could have separated our stations by 2 km and still maintained the network!

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