01/30/2023
2023 SFLARC Winter Field Day
This marks our club's first WFD event. In keeping with our general attitude of camaraderie and fun, we applied for a special event call and got Whiskey 4 Miami. This threw some of the other contesters for a spin. We heard “What's the rest of your call?” many times throughout the event! We're in Miami, drinking Whiskey, not shoveling snow! Ha!
Okay, so enough shenanigans (not really)...
We arranged to setup at a nature preserve in the southern part of Miami-Dade County. This place was so quiet at night that you could hear a mosquito burp from 100 yards. The last thing we wanted is generator racket. As a consensus we agreed no stinkin' noisy generators! We ran our Field Day on solar power. No noise, no fumes (except from the operators themselves), and no RF hash in our receivers.
5 stations went on the air, all on HF. The gear was pretty diverse. Elecraft K4 at the top of the list, a few Icoms, and a Xiegu QRP station. Antenna wise there was a Hustler 4BTV, 5BTV, GAP, BuddyPole, and a dipole.
I ran the QRP setup with the Xiegu G90 into a 5BTV that turned out to be tuned for everything but the ham bands. I used extension cords as ground counterpoises and managed to make my share of DX contacts despite the low power signal. Best catch was Italy. He wasn't in the contest but what do I care.. Italy on 15 watts SSB! Woohoo!
Lunch was pulled pork sandwiches, dinner was Cuban lasagna. If you don't know what that is, it's a layer pulled pork shoulder cooked Cuban style, a layer of rice and beans, a layer of cassava, and bits of pork crackling on top. It's yummy and guaranteed to help you fail your cholesterol check at the next doctor's visit. Of course, ci**rs and adult beverages were on hand between operator shifts. It was all potluck so no legal tender was harmed during this operation.
Things wound down around 10PM which is when we circled the wagons, lit the ci**rs, and proceeded to QRN each other with story time. We had a low budget laser show set to Pink Floyd running in the background which admittedly did look cool projected on an old county trailer. I stayed on the air till I got that Italy contact. Once that happened I considered myself accomplished and packed my radio away. Around 2AM it was only the sounds of belches, snoring, and methane. 4 diehards spent the night, I was not one of them. I left my stuff setup and came back Sunday morn.
Sunday morn there was some operation but those poor guys were running on yesterday's coffee. Random unwanted objects from a pirate themed kid's party they had at the park on Saturday kept making their rounds from one car to another. K4KKC, there's an inflatable sword in your luggage carrier... HA! Everybody tore down and we were out of there by about 11AM or so.
We made it a point to leave that place cleaner than how we found it. The park staff was great and we appreciate their hospitality. We had a blast. Just enough ham radio to test our gear and learn what needs to be improved but not so much that it got in the way of a bunch of radio friends catching up face to face and having a great time.
73 de W4THM
South Florida Latin Amateur Radio Club
