Winter Field Day - What Was Up With That?

[W1UJR]

Anybody else note the "Winter Field Day" operators on the band yesterday?

Seems they were reporting the station config, and outside temp!
I wondered if they were actually outdoors?

Activity was so good, I had a hard time finding a clear spot for the 40 meter Sunday AWA Noon net, then they seemed to shut down right at noontime.
Nice polite ops however, quite a change from the traditional Field Day.

[WA5VQM]

I hadn't noticed FD but there was a French DX contest of some sort and Sunday I was playing in the CX (Classic Exchange) thing, running my boatanchors on CW and having a grand ol' time. The phone part (AM welcome) is in two weeks.

The bands were busy, that's for sure.

73, Mark

[WA3VJB]

One of our affiliated groups,the Society for the Preservation of Amateur Radio, sponsors and promotes the annual Winter Field Day and is reporting a good turnout.

The event was announced earlier on QRZ.com, eham.net, and Newsline.

http://www.spar-hams.org/contests/winterfd/index.php?pg=11

[AF9J]

A friend of mine, KC9ECI, asked me if I was going to do Winter Field day.  He was going out with two other ops to a field location in the LaCrosse, WI area.  I told him I no longer have portable gear (the FT-897D I sold this last summer), other than my Small Wonder Labs SW-40, 40m QRP rig.  I tried it from home (Winter Field Day has a home station category), but only heard a few stations contacting the Winter Filed Day stations. 

I may do FYBO (Freeze Your Butt Off - a QRP predecessor to Winter Field Day [you also can operate outdoors in FYBO]) with the SW-40 next weekend.  Last year, I went to a local park, shut off the car, draped a wire antenna out to the trees, and opened the windows just enough to get the temp in the car down to the outside air temp (part of the FYBO exchange is your operating temp.), but keep the wind away (the wind chill was 40 below!).  I paper logged, and had to keep my pen in my glove, to keep the ink from freezing.  When I started, the temp was 4 degrees.  When I quit for the day (because I was getting too cold), it was 1 degree (the next morning it was 10 below).  On 20m, one station in Florida, asked for several repeats of my operating temp (2 degrees at the time), because he seemed to find it hard to grasp that I was sending a single digit temp!  It'll be interesting with the SW-40.  Now, I just need to find another battery for it (the old 12V gel cell is shot).

73,
Ellen - AF9J

P.S. - temps here'll be weird today (as high as 44 degrees), but down below zero by late Tuesday night.  go figure!

[W1UJR]

Ah, thanks for the information fellows.
I wondered who was running that, a group or a club.

I imagine the southern boys had it a bit better than those of us in the northeast, it was mighty cold yesterday.
Whoever was involved, they seemed to have a decent turn out.

Its actually a cool idea, no pun intended, something to shake one out of the winter doldrums.

-Bruce

[NE1S]

Ah, thanks for the information fellows.

Hey Bruce, one ain't a fellow! (Hi Ellen!  )

Regarding the FYBO test, is that temperature exchange in degrees Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvin?

-'1S

[W1UJR]

Good point Larry, smack.

Mea culpa, in fact mea maxima culpa Ellen, my bad. 
So let's make that ladies and gentlemen.

[AF9J]

Ah, thanks for the information fellows.

Hey Bruce, one ain't a fellow! (Hi Ellen!  )

Regarding the FYBO test, is that temperature exchange in degrees Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvin?

-'1S

Hmmmmm lesseee.  Kelvin?  Nah!  It would have been too hot at 255K!  Ummmmmm, I think it's in degrees Fahrenheit.  Yeah!, that's it!  Oh, and if you're operating indoors, you have to give your radio room's Temp!  Yes, I really was operating in 1 degree Fahrenheit temps.  Wanna hear something even more stupid?  In the 90s, I used to operate portable from my parents' back yard (while sitting in their unattached, unheated garage), for the ARRL, January VHF Sweepstakes. One year, I spent a Saturday doing VHF SS, in 3 Below Zero (Fahrenheit) temps.  NEVER again! 

73,
Ellen - AF9J 

[WB2EMS]

When I lived in Rochester NY area, the local VHF club would put on a big push for January VHF sweepstakes, kind of a fun grudge match with the Philly packrats. They had lots of state borders for multipliers nearby, but Rochester having no VHF low TV channels had an unusually large number of active VHF'ers. So we made up in operators what they had in multipliers. Clubs could aggregate their members scores and it made for a fun competition and was a good cure for cabin fever post holidays.

Anyway, I remember a number of years when a group of us would mount an effort south of the Rochester metro area in the bristol hills which more or less overlooked the city and suburbs. One year we were in a partially built house with only the frame, western wall, and roof on yet. It was about 20F in the day, and near zero at night. We took over the space that would later be the first floor bathroom, hung a parachute around the walls, set up a tent inside that, and ran an electric space heater to get it up to a livable temp. The wind was so strong on the hill that while I was mounting a beam up on the roof, it was tearing shingles loose next to me! We did pretty well, I recall working texas on 2 meters with about 10 watts and a 3 element beam and some aurora on 6 plus working nearly everyone in Rochester on 2 FM. We had some YL friends along who did some cooking and logging and spent some times operating and getting to experience ham radio. At night we all piled into the tent in a puppy pile where we finally got warm enough to sleep.

The following year we managed to find a teeny little 8x10 cabin on a nearby hillside and ran out of that place with a kerosene heater for heat. It was frigid that year, sub zero as I recall. The stars were amazing outside with hardly any light pollution around. We got a good session of aurora on 6 that year and it was really creepy. We worked a number of sideband stations and the distorted 'not quite human' voices coming out of the speaker made the hair stand up on the back of your neck all alone on that cold isolated hilltop. 

Fun times. Cold, but fun. Sorry I missed out on this winter FD. Maybe I'll do a little HF packing for the FYBO, I've got a pack with an IC703 and one of N0LX's designs for a 20 meter EFHW on a fishpole.