Winter Field Day 2024

The Aptos Grange is on Mar Vista dr. Aptos, down by the freeway.  You will see a large parking lot with a large open meeting hall. There will be plenty of room for a swap and Field Day under one room, out of the weather..

The operators and helpers will set antennas Friday after 4 pm and Saturday morning.  This is a small group.  We could use help setting up tables for the swap, coffee machine and food.  Operators will be setting up tables for radios,  rolling out coax and setting up smaller, portable antennas.  There isn’t a lot of space for antennas, so, we will keep them modest.  

 It is quite normal for the HF operators to suffer interference from the nearby stations.  Organized clubs rotate frequencies every 30 minute to reduce interference.   We’ve never been that organized on Summer field day.   Perhaps this time will be different.   Newer members will have chances to work with senior operators. This training opportunity is far more important than higher scores.

The emphasis will be on training new hams on operating Field Day.   We will keep the antennas, stations and operations simple yet effective.  We hope that people will bring their surplus radio gear to the swap.  On some of our summer swaps, we had only 2 sellers.

This past week, the numbers of clubs participating in WFD jumped from 246 to over 800.  Have a look at the WFD web site.   A large number of hams are quite interested in the swap meet.  The small group setting up stations might not have the time to set up the tables for the swap.  We could use your help.    Saturday evening, volunteers will be needed to take down tables, take out the trash and sweep up the floor.  Lets make this fun people….    Craig