Winter Field Day 2025

It's January, and you know what that means! Winter Field Day! Yeah!

Goodness gracious, it's 2025 already, and the last full weekend of the month is Winter Field Day. I won't go into the particulars about Winter Field Day (WFD from this point forward). You can read about WFD and it's rules on their website. I really like WFD because my club, KK4GQ, traditionally goes to a local state park and we do individual setups, with only the bare minimum of coordination. Some folks come out just for the day, some come out and tent camp for the weekend, and others like my lovely YL and I will take our camper out for an extended stay. For us it's less an operating event, and more a social gathering as members (campground staff and other campers) wander from setup to setup to see who's running what. There'll be food, campfires, lots of tall tales, some technical stuff, and a generally good time. 

This is, I think, the fourth year we've gone out to this state park. It's called Chattahoochee Bend State Park, and it's in the northwestern corner of Coweta County, south of Atlanta. While it's a large park in terms of acreage, other than camping and hiking there's not a whole lot to do there. That's why it's easy to get reservations, and it's quiet. For my wife and I it's our 'home' park - it's where we go when we just want to get away from it all, but don't want to travel far (the park is only about 50 minutes from our house). It has the added bonus that our daughter and her family live only about 20 minutes away, so they can drop by for a quick visit.

We've never had a bad WFD at this park, but we have had some interesting ones. One year it snowed, then the power went out. Roberta and I were lying in bed wondering if, a. we had enough propane left in the single 20 gallon bottle to see us through the night and, b. if we had enough juice in the battery to keep the furnace igniter and blower working until the power came back on. The answer to both of those questions was, 'we're not sure', so we packed ourselves and the dogs into the car and rushed home through a snowstorm to spend a warm night at home, returning to the campground the following morning to finish out the weekend. 

Another WFD brought us rain, lots of it, and we had to take refuge in the camper. I clamped a Chameleon vertical antenna to the picnic bench, snaked some coax into the camper, set my IC-705 in an overhead cabinet, linked to it wirelessly and collected some contacts while sitting at the dinette table. 

Good thing the Chameleon is waterproof

Snuggled away in an overhead cabinet, talking wirelessly to my laptop

But like I said, most of our club's WFD setups are more social events than operating events. It's fun to wander around, take a look at not just the radio setups but the campsite setups, catch up with friends I see too infrequently, and just shoot the breeze. 

The weather's not always bad, and some years it's balmy and shirtsleeve weather - 

And other years it's just downright cold - 

But we always seem to draw a crowd.

Some park staff and other campers talking with KI4ASK about amateur satellite comms.
Joe always puts on a good show

This year Roberta and I will have some interesting changes. First of all, we have a new, larger camper that is much more comfortable to take refuge in if the weather gets really bad. Next, while it's close to Atlanta and all of its infrastructure, cell coverage at Chattahoochee Bend is lousy. We'll be using Starlink quite heavily on this trip. Next, I've got some new antenna setups I'm eager to try. And while I don't have any new radios, I've got old radios with new configurations that I'm looking forward to testing out.

If you are not doing anything on January 25th, drop on by. We'd love to meet you!

W8BYH out