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As has been announced, this year our Field Day will be Saturday, June 28, 2025 only.
The Paris Sports Complex pavilion will only be available to us from Saturday morning until 10:00 PM Saturday night.
My plan is operate in the “skinny mode” and show up with only mostly what I need to get on the air quickly and operate then be able to take down quickly at 10:00 PM and go home.
Cindy will bring her IC-7300 and operate SSB/CW and I will bring my “Blue Box” and operate FT4/FT8.
She and I will use end-fed antennas on the west side using the existing attachments on the parking lot poles and on the pavilion. I have an idea on how to add a third antenna to the attachments, which will leave one more pair of attachments for another person to have an antenna on the east supports.
As I recall, last year no one used the east set of antenna attachments. Folks, all you need is to bring your wire antenna and enough rope and your antenna can be easily hung up in the air without erecting any supports. The dimensions between the supports are shown in the picture below.
I have ordered some quick detach devices that I plan to use on these antennas. We put the antennas up on each end with a ladder as usual however Saturday night when it is time to leave we just pull on the quick release rope and the antennas fall to the ground for a quick escape!
Below is an artists deception of the layout of the three antennas:
Please forgive the bad lines and drawing. I am not good with ms paint.
We plan on putting up either, an efhw from the SW corner to the tree (yellow line) or a vertical of some sort where the red dot is. Cliff KI5OPP and I W5PTX, and anyone else that wants to join in, are going to use one station and take turns operating and logging. I’ve also added the blue line to represent the 1,000 ft circle. So, if all else fails, I can drive my truck around in circles and make mobile contacts. 🙂
Sounds good Mark, if no one else uses the pre-installed pulleys for the east antenna then I will use it for my digital station and not put up the third wire antenna between the west and east antennas.
If anyone wants to use the east antenna please let me know ahead of time.
Please remember that there are some low profile high-voltage power lines immediately to the south of your antennas along the treeline/road. I have marked the power lines in red in the attached picture. They are noisy and dangerous, you might want to go by and take a look!
Below is a 1,000 foot radius from the shelter.
Haven’t seen any new posts here so I guess there isn’t much new to report from anyone.
I would still like to know if anyone wants to use the eastern wire antenna support for their use. If so, I will plan on putting up the third wire antenna between the east and west antennas. If no one wants to use the east antenna support then I will use it and not put up the third antenna.
73,
Charles WA5VHU
All,
I looked around and didn’t find the 2025 ARRL Field Day Guide anywhere online. It was embedded in the June 2025 QST and so I just extracted those pages. If you care to read the PDF and/or print it out, please click this link – 2025 ARRL Field Day Guide.
73,
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)
One of Cindy’s best friends passed away rather suddenly and the “rememberance” is the Saturday of Field Day. It is in Rockwall and is from noon until 2:00 PM.
We will go to the rememberance and plan to leave by 2:00 PM. This should put us at Field Day aroud 4:00 PM.
I will probably be available via texting/phone call if needed during that time.
Cindy and I will be bringing our own radio/antenna equipment. Please leave us room near an AC outlet for our small camping trailer.
We will see you there!
Cindy KD5CCB
Charles WA5VHU
Generator!
As the motor home is not going to be at FD supplying AC power, I had planned to bring my Honda 2000 quiet generator however as I may not get to FD until 4:00 PM it looks like someone else should bring a generator.
At the club meeting when the generator subject came up there was a few folks that spoke up and said they could bring their generator.
So, who is going to bring their generator? What kind of generator is it? One year when the motor home generator acted up I fired up my Honda 2000 and it continued to run no problem the 3 or 4 stations we had.
Charles WA5VHU
As I won’t be at FD at the start I won’t be able to provide the server computer for the networked logging.
If someone else want’s to do that go for it!
Otherwise perhaps each station stays on a particular band? If a station on a particular band shuts down and another station picks it up perhaps they can add the contacts to the new station via a thumb drive?
I will get the Bandpass Filters to someone else before FD.
Charles WA5VHU
I will be bringing this generator. We will have it if it is needed. I don’t think we’ll need to fire it up, so I will not be bringing extra gas. I’m less than 5 minutes away if I need to come grab the gas can.
Mark W5PTX
Mark,
If you don’t think you will need to fire up youir generator does that mean someone else is bringing a generator? I don’t see it here on the forum if they are.
Charles WA5VHU
I don’t know if anyone else is bringing one, but I’ll have mine there in case anyone needs to use it.
After thinking about it for second, I might have to fire it up for a bit. The laptop will not last all day. I have not fully tested running the radio and laptop for an extended period of time. I know I can get 3 hours out of them, but I haven’t operated them together for longer than that. I might have to fire up the generator to run the laptop and keep the battery going.
For those that are curious Mark and I and the other operators are talking about just running off our 12 volt batteries for the duration of the event. My battery is a 100 AH which should last the 8 or so hours that we will operate. I think this may give us 5 extra points and a quieter FD site.
The problem is we are all using laptops whose batteries won’t last the duration of the FD event.
(Remember that laptops can be run off of AC Mains unless used to control/key up the radio. If logging only then you can plug it in to the wall outlet.)
Folks, some of our choices include:
- Run a generator all the time.
- Run a generator when laptops need to be charged.
- Use an 12v to 120v inverter however this will put more load on your battery and may emit RF interference.
- Get a power supply/charger specific for your laptop that runs off of 12v. Might be a little late to get one of those now and they can emit RF interference.
What do you all think?
I may just run my little Honda 1000i while there operating.
Charles WA5VHU
I am bringing my generator as a back up/just in case type of deal. I may have to run it to get the laptop battery charged back up.
I’m not sure I’m smart enough to get this going before Saturday, but it is this evening’s project.
If I get it all together, then I’ll be good to go. If not, I’ll use my 30ah battery and inverter. That will cover most of the day. And only using the generator when needed.
How to run your laptop off of 12 volts DC
I realized that my laptop can be charged from the little USB-C port on the side. To charge your laptop via USB-C, you’ll need a compatible USB-C cable and a power adapter or power bank that supports USB PD.
Many recently manafactured laptops and most all tablets have a USB-C port that supports laptop charging.
I purchased a compatible charger from https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPSQYXVB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
If you order it within the next 3 hours you can get it delivered this Friday.
I plan to use this and not need 120vac to power any of my equipment.
73,
Charles WA5VHU
Here is the Field Day log submittal for the club:
Summary
Entry received at: 2025-07-10 02:13:56 UTCSubmitted by: Charles Penry, WA5VHU E-mail: wa5vhu@penry.us
Call Used: W5W GOTA Station Call: (NONE) ARRL/RAC Section: NTX Class: 3A
Participants: 20 Club/Group Name: Red River Valley Amateur Radio Club
Power Source(s): Battery
Power Multiplier: 2X
Preliminary Total Score: 1,142
Bonus Points:
Bonus Points Status
100% emergency power 300
Public location 100
Public information table 100
Safety officer 100
Social media 100
Entry submitted via web 50
Total bonus points 750Score Summary –
CW Digital Phone TotalCW Digital Phone
Total QSOs 0 82 32
Total Points 0 164 32 = 196 Claimed Score = (QSO points x power mult) = 392Band/Mode QSO Breakdown:
CW Digital Phone
Band QSOs Pwr(W) QSOs Pwr(W) QSOs Pwr(W)
160m
80m
40m 18 100
20m 79 100 14 100
15m 3 100
10m
6m
2m
222
432
Other
Satellite
GOTA
Total 0 82 3273,
WA5VHU
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