Congratulations, KPARC! We scored 1076 points in Field Day 2023! That’s fantastic but the highlight was the opportunity for everyone to get together spending time enjoying our great hobby and one anothers’ friendship.
While we “weren’t in it to win it”, I think we “done purdy good!” That said, we can easily do even better next year. One lesson learned is that attention to detail really matters.
For example, we sent the specified message traffic via Ham Radio during the FD event but failed to use the correct format. That, alone, cost us 200 bonus points (my bad!). We could have also tested (but not required to use) our portable generator or other emergency power source for the Club Room. That would have netted 100 bonus points per transmitter (i.e., 300!). Just one Amateur Radio satellite contact is worth 100 bonus points.
On the plus side, however, the CPR training, GOTA station, and W1AW bulletin intercept efforts were fantastic and were easy 100 bonus points each.
Field Day 2023 was a fun learning experience for us and definitely a fun and useful activity for our Sun City Center area Ham community that participated. Furthermore, it highlighted our strengths as well as those areas we need to focus on improving to best serve in an emergency. And the Sun City Center community is watching: we had several visitors come by to observe and had local media attention. Interest in emergency radio resources has never been greater, evidenced by the over-400 residents who are now enrolled in the Disaster Radio Service (DRS) program. The DRS program directly benefits from the resources inherent in the Amateur Radio service that provides a vital link to the outside world during a communications-down emergency. And that’s what Field Day is really all about!
I’d especially like to thank (in no particular order) the following persons for helping make FD 2023 a great success:
| Eric | WA4EMN | For the network and website support |
| Bill | N1CDO | For supporting KPARC as a designated EOC (and for so many other long-established club resources) |
| Bill | W1WAB | For setting up the N3FLP logging software |
| Joe | W0QF | For setting up the GOTA station and Public Information Table (and so many more activities as KPARC President, including major pizza contributor) |
| Larry | KN4PYW | For intercepting the W1AW bulletin (and reminding us why we love HF radio so much!) |
| Larry | K9UXQ | For the excellent CPR training (and making us aware of the AED we have, just down the hallway from the clubroom) |
| Bill | KQ4CQY | FT8 Operator and resident cookie man |
| Dick | W4NWD | Operator and purveyor of all things Ham Radio (and major pizza contributor) |
| Eileen | AB9T | Operator extraordinaire (most FD phone contacts and Queen of DRS) |
| Jim | K2PLC | FT8 Operator and co-creator of the best grounding system in a Ham Shack |
| Tim | W4TLA | FT8 Operator and co-creator of the best grounding system in a Ham Shack |
| Doug | K4DGG | For the major make-over of computer resources in the Club Room |
| Tom | KQ4BMT | For his breadth of knowledge and input in emergency operations and for volunteering to be our FD Safety Officer |
| Joel | KQ0J | Code operator and Senior SCCARC representative |
| Dennis | KM4WMC | Phone operator and Weekly W4KPR Net Control |
| Ken | WB2UAW | For donating a new Yaesu FTdx10 forming our Position 2 system (Thank you, Ken!) |
I sincerely hope that everyone enjoyed Field Day 2023. We missed a bunch of you out there and hope that we’ll see you next year at FD 2024.
73
Keith/KI5US
