Well, another WFD has come and gone. This WFD event, my wife and I camped and participated at Sand Pond Campground at Pine Log State Forest. The nice thing about camping at a park or state forest is the WFD event can double as a Parks-on-the-Air activation. Nice! We were not the only ones there; we were joined by Daniel, K4MDA, and his wife in the site next to us, and Jim, KO4YZI, the next site down. Surprisingly, interference between stations was at a minimum. If there was some, one of us just would move to another band. No problems.
Both my wife and I had Friday through Monday off of work with plenty of time to enjoy the event this year and time to unload and pack everything back away on Monday after the event. We loaded up the truck on Friday with all the camping gear we would need: radio and kitchen shelter, food, and of course radios. I brought 2 HF radios and 2 computers so I would have a back-up in the event there was a repeat of Summer Field Day when my IC-705 quit working on digital modes. The shelter we use for the kitchen and radio ops is an Ozark Trail 10x10 canopy with an EZ-Up Camping Cube purchased from Amazon. We camp in the back of the pickup, so no additional tent needed (we used to tent camp. But after some unfortunate rain events, we stay much more comfortable in the back of the truck with the camper shell).
All 3 of us had our antennas set up the evening of 1/27. Per WFD rules you can begin setting up 24 hours before the start of the event which was 19:00 UTC or 13:00 Local time.
This year, I chose an antenna I had just purchased from Tim Ortiz (N9SAB) off of Ebay. This is an end-fed halfwave antenna for 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters. I usually set up a dipole, but I wanted to try something different this year. This antenna performed very well and had good results over the 4 bands. If you are looking for a great QRP antenna for portable use, I recommend the seller Timortiz on Ebay. I was even able to use my LDG Z817 tuner to get on 80 meters with this antenna and had some success with PSK31 on that band. To elevate the antenna, I used my SOTABeams 10M travel mast and one of my smaller telescoping "crappie poles" for the far end of the antenna. This gave the antenna an inverted-L with a slight slope downward at the far end. It really was somewhere between an inverted-L and inverted-V. Also on the main mast, was a slim-jim 2-meter roll-up j-pole I was using for local communications and some packet work.
SWR looks good on this EFHW on 40, 20, 15, 10 meters. Using a NanoVNA to analyze the antenna.
Daniel was using my usual go-to antenna he just purchased, the SOTABeams Bandhopper. This is a linked dipole for 20-30-40 meters. He strung it up in a nearby pine tree. Oh, if only you could have seen us trying to get a line over the lowest branch (which really wasn't that low at all). I normally have my arborist weight and rope in the truck, but I was unable to find it. So instead, we used a water bottle tied to some para cord. Unfortuntately, no video or pictures of us trying, but trust me...you would have been laughing at us. After some setbacks, we were finally successful. Good thing too, because darkness had set in.
Jim had an awesome antenna setup. He was using a BlueSky Tripod/mast that cranked up 40 feet or so. On top, he had a 2 meter antenna and just below was an 80 meter off-center fed antenna and 4:1 balun. It really was a great setup and really served him well over the course of the event.
Both Jim and I are members of the Bay County ARES group. Most of the group and members of the Panama City Radio Club were participating in WFD from the Bay County EOC. WFD is a great opportunity to test equipment and capabilities. Jim and I had our 2-meter stations set up to test communications back to the EOC and I wanted to test packet communications back to my node in Lynn Haven. Jim did really well with his radio/antenna combination. My slim-jim antenna didn't do so well. I could hear the EOC, but just barely and I had no RF path back to my packet node. This is all a learning experience, and lets me know from that distance I will need to find another option.
When the event started, I helped Daniel get FLdigi and FLrig set up on his laptop and communicating with his radio, then got him set up with Winlink and VARA soundmodem. He used FLdigi to log quite a few PSK31 contacts and seemed to really enjoy the mode. And now that he has Winlink capabilities, I am sure he will be using that on a regular basis (You hear that, Daniel? 😏). He and his wife had to pull out early Sunday morning, but at the time of his departure, he had around 60 QSOs in the logbook. Nice job, Daniel!
Jim, using his IC7610, stayed up into the early morning hours Sunday making SSB contacts. When we woke up Sunday morning, he had somewhere around 150 in the logbook. That radio and antenna setup was really working for him. Later Sunday morning, I also helped Jim get on digital modes using FLrig and FLdigi. While I was eating breakfast, he had already downloaded the software and was half-way there. Just needed to get a few settings in place and set some macros in FLdigi and he was off making PSK31 contacts. I thoroughly enjoy digital communications, and it brings me pleasure being able to get people started using digital modes.
As for the camping experience, my wife cooked a big pot of chili in the cast-iron dutch oven over the fire on Friday night. That night, the weather got down to 35 degrees, but we stayed comfortable in the back of the pickup under the camper shell with a heated blanket. The nice thing about an established campground is they provide power to run an electric heater in our kitchen/radio shelter and a heated blanket in the truck. Saturday morning my wife again used the dutch oven to cook mountain man breakfast. If you have not had mountain man breakfast while camping, you are missing out. There are recipes online, but basically its sausage, hash browns, eggs, bell peppers, onions all cooked together in the dutch oven with shredded cheese melted on top. We had left overs from both dinner the night before and breakfast in the morning and it kept us fed over the weekend. Saturday night was not as cold, and Daniel, Jim, and I enjoyed some time around the campfire chatting before we separated and some went back to radio, while I crawled in the truck and went to bed.
The FT-817 and N9SAB's EFHW antenna worked flawlessly and I am really pleased with this combination. I ended the contest with 30 QSOs over the course of the event which also will count as a Parks-on-the Air activation for both days from K-4635. I even was able to make an 80-meter contact on PSK31 with Greg and Chris operating using Greg's callsign N4KGL at East Bank Campground just across the FL/GA state line near Lake Seminole. It's not a lot of contacts, but I enjoyed helping the other guys on digital modes and socializing. We did end up packing up Sunday morning which cut my operating time a little short. But rain was coming in, and I did not want to be packing up in the rain. Operating QRP probably set me back a bit, but the power multiplier for QRP helps some. I also gained double points on the digital QSOs I made and bonus points for using alternate power (solar and battery), setting up outdoors, setting up a temporary antenna for the event, and operating away from home. If N3FJP software calculated points correctly (I don't know why it wouldn't), I ended the event with 2,636 points for Winter Field Day.
I have some video footage of the event and will have it on YouTube soon. In the end, WFD 2023 was a great time with friends in the local ham radio community and I look forward to other adventures in the future. And stay tuned for more information and adventures with Tim's EFHW antenna. If you want to check it out, you can find it on Ebay here.
73!
--Bob KK4DIV
