The August 2021 WCARES Monthly Meeting was in-person at the EOC.
Mobile HF Contesting: Jim Hall (AD4EB) shows how much planning, preparation, and dedication is required to participate at a world-class level of performance.
Tim Kreth, AD4CJ presented an ARRL video on RF Exposure and how to do the calculations and previewed a new ARRL calculation web page that should make the process easier.
Here are some related links:
ARRL Now Provides Free RF Exposure Calculator
RF Exposure Rules – ARRL video
ARRL RF Exposure information and resources page
Another WCARES Field Day is in the books. After a long period of only virtual events we were able to enjoy a limited in-person Field Day at the EOC in addition to members operating at home or in the field.
The pictures were provided by Josh N4CSV, Robert KA5WMF, Doug W4DML, Cliff N4CCB and Phil W4PHS.
(Buy/Sell/Trade ham gear)
On Sunday, July 11th at Noon, we’ll host a tailgate event at the Ag Center.
While we’ve been given permission to use the upper parking lot from Noon until 6:00pm, tailgate events are often wrapped up within an hour or two. So, get there as early as you can.
Those wishing to de-clutter their shack by selling a few things should bring their own table(s).
This event is still six weeks away, but mark your calendars and start looking around to see if you have any gear you might want to part with.
You can find more details about the Ag Center here:
http://williamsoncounty-tn.gov/594/Ag-EXPO-Park
(This event is also listed on the Event Calender)
and here is a map showing the entrance to and location of the upper parking lot:
The June 2021 WCARES Monthly Meeting was in-person at the EOC.
Cliff Batson (N4CCB) gave a presentation on the final plan for the WCARES Field Day 2021 event:
and Jack Cox (KA4OTB) gave a tour of the Auxiliary Communications room inside the Williamson County Public Safety Center:
Field Day initial discussion
With six weeks until Field Day 2021, it’s too soon to have a comprehensive presentation… but it’s not too early to begin making Field Day plans. This video gives viewers an overview of Field Day and presents a list of things to consider when planning their Field Day event. A more thorough presentation will be made during the June 2021 WCARES monthly meeting.
WSPR Experiment
In this video, Rob, KN4RHI experiments with WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter) with his HCLW-20* antenna.
*Highly Compromised Long Wire antenna is Rob’s tongue-in-cheek designation of this makeshift antenna located only 10′ off the ground.
Virtual Shack Tour
Paul, KM4PT takes us on a virtual tour of his ham shack and also shares his love of portable ops.
Presentations & Shack Tour!
ARES & Public Service: Father Raphael Ortiz (W4RAO), Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator for Eastern Tennessee, talked about the ARES response to the Puerto Rico deployment for Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Tech Topic: Krissy Hurley (Warning Coordination Meteorologist, NWS) gave a presentation on Identifying Severe Weather Features.
Virtual Shack Tour: Dave Matthews (KI4PSR)
Presentations & Shack Tour!
N0AX – Grounding and Bonding
Ward Silver (N0AX)
(Note that this is a link to his presentation on another channel… not the WCARES Media YouTube channel)
ARES and Public Service: Boston Marathon
Jeff Schwartz (KC1DWP)
Virtual Ham Shack Tour
Tim Kreth (AD4CJ)
This month RJ, KC4LRR has a presentation on Anderson Powerpoles, Andrew, AK4FA gives a Technical Presentation on DMR and Scott, KD4VVC takes us on a tour of his radio shack including a look at the tower, antenna switching, lightning protection and grounding!
Update: PDFs of RJ KC4LRR’s Powerpoles and Andrew, AK4FA’s DMR presentations have been added under:
Library & Special Interests --> Presentations
Videos
Anderson Powerpoles: RJ (KC4LRR)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbhEZSsD568
Digital Mobile Radio (DMR): Andrew Gossett (AK4FA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zgms8Ko-pg
Virtual Shack Tour: Scott Gray (KD4VVC)
Winter Field Day 2021 is done! A number of people took part in the N3FJP setup that built the live stats web page. Here is the list of claimed scores – well done all!
| WCARES-TN Total Score = 18,857 | |||||
| Call | Score | QSOs | 20 Min | 60 Min | Frequency |
| AK4FA | 5,915 | 845 | 6 | 2 | |
| N4CCB | 4,810 | 245 | 30 | 28 | 7.03450 |
| WB5WAJ | 2,284 | 570 | 72 | 60 | |
| KA5WMF | 1,386 | 194 | 0 | 3 | 14.07800 |
| K4ARC | 832 | 208 | 3 | 9 | 7.18700 |
| KA4OTB | 792 | 183 | 9 | 17 | 3.75751 |
| WB4RHQ | 762 | 127 | 9 | 9 | |
| K4COM | 754 | 377 | 12 | 62 | |
| KN4RHI | 282 | 43 | 0 | 0 | |
| K8GNG | 240 | 40 | 0 | 4 | |
| KC1DWP | 189 | 63 | 3 | 7 | 14.29700 |
| KK4AIZ | 180 | 60 | 0 | 3 | 14.29570 |
| W4BJB | 174 | 58 | 9 | 8 | 7.21501 |
| N4YOU | 99 | 33 | 0 | 2 | 7.22300 |
| KM4SOA | 54 | 27 | 6 | 3 | 7.24350 |
| W4BAX | 44 | 44 | 3 | 9 | |
| KN4RHF | 30 | 30 | 6 | 5 | |
| N4BAX | 30 | 15 | 0 | 0 | |
| KO4DCO | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| NM4N | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14.20200 |
Check out Cliff’s recent WCARES e-mail for all the details.
From Cliff, N4CCB:
“When is it?
The event officially begins at 1pm Central time on Saturday, January 30th, 2021.
It runs for 24 hours, ending at 1pm on Sunday, January 31st, 2021
Setup
You can begin setup 24 hours before the event.
You are allowed a total of 12 hours of setup time.
Introduction
Given that it’s currently considered unwise to gather together to conduct our normal WCARES Winter Field Day event, the question we must ask ourselves is:
How can we make the best of the situation?
We will participate fully in Winter Field Day as individuals while working together for an aggregate score AND by staying in touch (virtually) throughout the weekend.
Giving credit where credit is due, there are two sources for this interesting concept of how we’re planning to carry out this event:
The Winter Field Day folks decided to do the same for WFD 2021.
My hope is you’ll choose to participate in this WCARES event and will use the guidelines in this document to make the most of our virtual weekend together.
The Big Picture
There are 3 things that are unique to our 2021 Winter Field Day experience:
Playing as Individuals but working toward a common goal…
The Winter Field Day folks announced that people submitting WFD logs as individuals could also specify a club name – and all of the logs that bear the same club name will be aggregated for a total club score. This will allow us to compete as individuals but adds the fun of working together for the good of the group score.
Seeing each other’s progress and our combined score…
Having our computers networked together during previous WCARES Field Days, we took advantage of the N3FJP logging software’s ability to show our combined score in real-time. While we won’t be networked together this year, the N3FJP logging software has another trick up its sleeve that WILL allow us to see each other’s progress and our combined score! This is pretty cool. Here’s how it works…
When configuring the N3FJP logging software, there is a “Settings Menu” choice called Web Upload Contest Status. (Detailed configuration instructions are found later in this document.) You can configure N3FJP to upload your contact statistics to the internet every few minutes. Then, a separate N3FJP program (running at my house) looks at all of the cloud files and builds a custom web page showing our total club score AND the statistics of each participating station! By simply keeping a web browser open all weekend to that special web page, we’ll all be able to see each other’s progress and keep track of our combined score.
Live chat all weekend…
Another way to hang out together is through a live chat room where we can type messages to each other, post photos, etc.
I’ve set up a WCARES “server” with the Discord online service. By creating your free account on Discord.com, you can then click a special link that will grant you access to our “server”/chat area.
Everybody should read the official Winter Field Day rules.
Read them online in a web browser here: Winter Field Day
Read them in a PDF, suitable for printing here:
https://a2a53e2b-2285-4083-9cff-c99fe5ba1658.filesusr.com/ugd/1c7085_2445ed4b22f74e048fe9bd41c8dba103.pdf
If you want to maximize the points you earn in the contest, you will need to read the official rules and take note of the scoring calculation “multipliers” and the four 1,500 bonus points that are the key to boosting your score.
In a nutshell, you’ll score the most points if you do the following:
That is how WCARES achieved the #1 EOC and Top 10 (#9) Overall score in the country during the 2018 ARRL Field Day event.
Even though you will score the most points that way, you naturally won’t make as many contacts at 5 watts as you will at 100 watts. As much as I love QRP for my everyday ham radio fun, I enjoy running 100 watts during most contests so that I can “run a frequency” (park on a frequency and call CQ instead of “searching and pouncing” up and down the band).”
Again, be sure to check out Cliff’s recent WCARES e-mail for all the details.
Cliff gave an overview of this years WCARES Winter Field Day at the January Virtual Monthly Meeting (Saturday, January 16, 2021). You can find this presentation under the January, 2021 Virtual Monthly Meeting presentations on the presentations page:
Library & Special Interests --> Presentations
or here:
(* This event counts towards WCARES participation requirements )