On Saturday, January 24, 2026, members of ACARA met at the Jim Crouse Memorial Radio Station in the Athens Red Cross chapter house to participate in the annual Winter Field Day (https://winterfieldday.org/) event in class “2I” (two transmitter, indoors).
While waiting for the arrival of a major winter storm, ACARA members operated as W8UKE from the start of the event at 11am EST until the snow arrived at 9pm EST. The group succeeded in making 157 QSOs using CW, SSB, FM, and JS8Call on the 80, 40, 20, 15, 6, and 2m bands. The operators were Ben Brewster, KF8DES; Jeramy Duncan, KC8QDQ; Eric McFadden, WD8RIF; and Miles McFadden, KD8KNC. Other members visited the operation but didn’t operate.
For radios, the team used the Jim Crouse Memorial Radio Station’s ICOM IC-7610 transceiver for HF and 6m SSB and CW; the station’s Alinco dual-band FM transceiver for 2m simplex; and the ICOM IC-705 owned by Paul Schulz, WD8SCV, for HF JS8Call digital. For antennas, the team used the Jim Crouse Memorial Radio Station’s permanent antennas: a 40m end-fed halfwave antenna, a Cushcraft 5-BTV roof-mounted HF vertical, and a 2m/70cm vertical. In addition, the Team deployed the club’s Chameleon EMCOMM-IIIP end-fed multi-band wire antenna and an 80m end-fed halfwave wire antenna over the parking lot.
Here’s a breakdown of the 157 QSOs by band/mode:
- 80m CW: 17 QSOs
- 80m SSB: 1 QSO
- 80m JS8Call: 7 QSOs
- 40m CW: 1 QSO
- 40m SSB: 8 QSOs
- 40m JS8Call: 22 QSOs
- 20m CW: 70 QSOs
- 20m SSB: 17 QSOs
- 20m JS8Call: 4 QSOs
- 15m JS8Call: 3 QSOs
- 6m SSB: 1 QSO
- 2m FM: 6 QSOs
Here’s a breakdown of QSOs by operator, band, and mode (with JS8Call being designated as “RTTY”):
For 2026, the Winter Field Day rules offered Objectives that served as score multipliers. The club achieved four of the twelve Objectives: “Operate away from home”, “Deploy and make at least one contact on multiple antennas”, “Use multiple modes”, and “Operate six continuous hours during the event”. The team missed all the opportunities to try to copy the Winter Field Day Special Bulletin, and they were unable to make three QSOs on six bands, so they failed to achieve the Objectives “Copy the Field Day Special Bulletin” and “Make three contacts on at least six different bands”.
With two points awarded for each CW QSO, two points awarded for each digital QSO, and one point awarded for each SSB QSO, and with an Objectives multiplier of x8, ACARA’s calculated score for the event is 2,248 points.
The operation provided good training on emergency and contest operations. The operation demonstrated the utility of the digital mode JS8Call as an emergency communications mode. The operation also highlighted some problems including a reminder that the Jim Crouse Memorial Radio Station’s Hustler 5-BTV provides poor SWR match on several bands and the station’s 40m end-fed halfwave antenna that should be resonant on 40, 20, 15, and 10m, provides very high SWR on all bands other than 40m.
Thanks go to Jeff Slattery, N8SUZ, for coordinating with Athens Red Cross; to Ben Brewster, KF8DES, for providing the JS8Call station; and to all the operators who made the operation a success.
Winter Field Day results can be seen at https://winterfieldday.org/results.php.
Eric McFadden, WD8RIF
President, Athens County Amateur Radio Association
