Winter Field Day 2026

Winter Field Day 2026 took place from 1/24 to 1/25.  I operated from Pine Log State Forest Sand Pond Campground with a small group from the Panama City Amateur Radio Club. The group included Daniel K4MDA and his wife (Marie), Greg KQ4SJP, Frank KC8VKA, John (sorry, John. Can't remember the callsign at the moment), myself and my wife Carla. My wife and I arrived Friday afternoon around 4pm and began setting up our camp. We sleep in the bed of the truck in the camper shell where I have built a bed platform and shelving for keeping our camping supplies full-time (always to ready for a camping adventure), but had to set up the popup canopy with the Ez-up Camp Cube. This provides a great way to stay out of the weather. Speaking of weather, it could not have been better for the event (at least until Sunday morning). Lows in the upper 40's at night and around 60 during the day. It was cool, but enjoyable. Friday night, we cooked steaks, asparagus and mushrooms over the propane campfire. After dinner we enjoyed some time chatting with our neighbors Daniel and Marie around the campfire. It was a good time and memories were made. 

Saturday morning, I arose around 6am and began setting up the station. My radio was the Yaesu FT-857D with the LDG Z-100 Tuner and a Buddipole dipole antenna. Since the Buddipole system is tunable, I did not need to use the tuner. It was mainly if I wanted to set up my long wire antenna, but found the Buddipole sufficient for the event. Daniel had set up his Wolf River Coil and IC-7300 in his pop up shelter. Once I was able to get Carla out of the truck bed, we cooked mountain man breakfast in the dutch oven. This is always one of our favorites for camp breakfast. Once the event kicked off, Daniel and I would trade back and forth on who was in the lead with Daniel repeatedly saying he was going to "win" field day. Well, not sure if he won, but he did get more in the log than I did. After a while we got the SotaBeam bandhopper in the air for Daniel which was an improvement over the WRC antenna, then Frank came by our sites and helped Daniel get a long wire antenna up into the tree which was a game changer. Did I "lose" field day, yeah probably. But, I enjoyed getting the station set up, the friendly competition, and visiting with friends during the event. Saturday night, we had smash burgers at Daniel and Marie's campsite cooked on the Blackstone grill. Daniel's not a bad cook...er...chef. 

Weather was looking like it was going to get bad overnight and early morning, so we all made the decision to break down Saturday night and get most of our stuff packed up. In the end, I only logged 21 contacts: some ssb, some digital. Like I said, it wasn't all about the numbers for me. I enjoy the activity of setting the station up and having a good time with friends. I hope you all had a great Winter Field Day and we will be doing it again. 

 Photos below courtesy of Frank KC8VKA and myself 

 73 -Bob

New Video on Youtube

Check out the latest video where I try some local short distance communications using HF packet and Vara HF.

https://youtu.be/nkbbkcx0OYU

RaDAR Rally Report from Nov. 4, 2023

 The RaDAR (Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio) Rally was 11/4/23.  I decided to operate from a familiar location, Pine Log State Forest which is also a POTA park K-4635.  This allowed me to leverage it as a POTA activation as well.  My planned start time was 1500 UTC or 10:00 am local time.  The weather was perfect.  There was not a cloud in the sky.  While the morning started off a little cool, it warmed up to around 80 degrees by the end of the event, which was 1900 UTC for my activation window (you are allowed a 4 hour window).  

My first operating location was grid loc EM70BJ52.  I was able to hear Chris VA3ECO, another RaDAR station, but was unable to complete the QSO.  I was just too weak to be heard while running QRP.  It took a while at the first location, but I eventually made my 5 QSOs required to move to the 2nd location.  

My second location was EM70BJ66.  The QSOs came quickly at this location and I was on the move again in about 15 minutes.  Stop 3 was EM70BJ65 where the next 5 contacts took around 30 minutes.  The highlight of this stop was my final QSO with KA4JAM, a 13 year old ham calling CQ from his home.  It is good to hear the younger generation on the air.  I also heard RaDAR station N5VMO at this location, but he was unable to hear me.

After I logged my last at stop 3, I decided backtrack toward the trailhead and made my 4th stop at EM70BJ67.  Here I started calling CQ on 14.346 and quickly logged my last 5.  

I had 20 total QSOs, 12 of which were park-to-park with other POTA stations.  Unfortunately, I did not log any RaDAR to RaDAR QSOs, but I did hear a couple stations.  In the end, I would call this a successful event.  It was good to get out and participate in the RaDAR Rally.  I thank Eddie ZS6BNE and Greg N4KGL in their efforts with RaDAR and look forward to the next event. If you would like to learn more about RaDAR you can check out these 2 blogs:

https://zs6bne.wordpress.com/

https://www.radarrally.info/p/radar-rally-rules.html

My video of the event is below.

73!

Camping at Florida Caverns State Park and POTA

 It has been a busy few months for us, and I have not had the free time I really desire to get out and camp, relax, and play radio as much as I would like.  In my opinion, camping during the summer months is pretty much out of the question here in FL anyway.  The lack of free time is evident in my absence on this blog as well as my YouTube channel.  Hopefully, I can get out and do more going forward.  

We had a chance to camp at Florida Caverns State Park in early October.  They had a nice campground and plenty of trails to explore.  I was actually surprised in the caverns.  I was not expecting much since we are in Florida, but the tour guide was great and the caverns were much more than I was anticipating.  

While there, I was able to set up my Chameleon F-loop the first night and send out a couple of Winlink messages.  I even activated the park on the next day for Parks-on-the-air.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the park and will be visiting again in the future.  

You can watch the video of our adventure below.

73!

Hiking in for a little POTA in Pine Log State Forest K-4635

 The weather is warming up in NW Florida and it is time to get back into portable operating, POTA activations and just getting out in nature.  I am fortunate to live not too far from Pine Log State Forest where there are miles of trails and plenty of room to operate radio, get away from everyone for a little while, and enjoy God's creation.  

Check out the sights and sounds from Pine Log State Forest K-4635 where I was able to activate the park once again with 20 contacts over about an hour.  

In the Park with Linpac Packet Software on a Raspberry Pi

 I've been looking for a terminal emulator program for my Raspberry Pi.  I did some research and found a program called Linpac and have been playing around with it at the house.  Since I've had it working well at home, I decided to head out to the park and try it in the field. Check out the video to see how it went.

Check out the Winter Field Day 2023 event video!