{"id":2275,"date":"2026-06-30T10:25:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/?p=2275"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:25:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:25:05","slug":"field-day-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/2026\/06\/30\/field-day-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Field Day 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">This year I traveled to southern Virginia to set up for this Field Day this year. I set up in Grayson Highlands State Park, a location I have been wanting to camp at for a while now. This year the opportunity opened up that we both could share some time together there for both hiking and camping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I set up my small radio, tuner and antenna in about 20 minutes. I have this go kit with everything inside where all I need to do is open up a box and, mostly, plug things in. Stringing an end-fed dipole 168 feet into the trees is the hardest part but that wasn&#8217;t too difficult either. I did it before the rains came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And did it rain! All weekend the rains would come and go. Luckily I was able to operate in between the rain and thunderstorms. When the thunderstorms roll in I disconnect everything and do something else. We also have Starlink so we can do research, work, watch movies, etc. FIFA is going on right so we were able to keep up with our team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the 24 hour period I made 32 contacts. All &#8220;search and pounce&#8221;. Very casual. My station is relative low power (less than 100 watts) and so there won&#8217;t be any &#8220;pile ups&#8221; looking to talk to me. So I went searching for others. It was not hard. I worked 80, 40 and 20 meters and listened in on the other bands for activity. 20 Meters was where I could make the longest contacts with my compromised antennae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My results are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>23 unique sections<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>20 different US states and 1 Canadian station<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Furthest contact: Newfoundland, Canada (NL) at ~1,525 miles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/wp-content\/uploads\/field_day_2026_map-1024x658.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2276\" srcset=\"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/wp-content\/uploads\/field_day_2026_map-1024x658.png 1024w, https:\/\/westerman.photo\/wp-content\/uploads\/field_day_2026_map-300x193.png 300w, https:\/\/westerman.photo\/wp-content\/uploads\/field_day_2026_map-768x494.png 768w, https:\/\/westerman.photo\/wp-content\/uploads\/field_day_2026_map-1536x987.png 1536w, https:\/\/westerman.photo\/wp-content\/uploads\/field_day_2026_map-2048x1317.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In field days past I would be involved with a local club (K4LRG). I used to love the carnival atmosphere of having so many like minded people in one spot doing what we love so much. The site map for those events would look very different from the one above. Where I only made a handful of contacts now, back then 5 stations working simultaneously 24-hour in a row would produce thousands of contacts all over the world. It was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since then I have scaled back my operations. I still love the idea of Field Day where you assume there is no power, no cell phones and the only way to communicate is with radio. This still an emergency readiness exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And you would think by now having done this for 50 or so years I would have my readiness list complete but I still don&#8217;t. I needed 3 things that will make next year&#8217;s FD more complete. Nothing big. An extension cord, a LED table lamp and overhead tent lamp so I can read what I am writing down and a 1:1 current choke for my end-fed antenna. All of that is on the way for my go-kit addition for the next event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m looking for the site for next year&#8217;s Field Day now. It will be in the mountains somewhere near a place that can be hiked. Probably a little closer to home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year I traveled to southern Virginia to set up for this Field Day this year. I set up in Grayson Highlands\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,15,21,25,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-radio","category-hobbies","category-lafamilia","category-science","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2278,"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions\/2278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerman.photo\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}