FIELD DAY IS ALMOST HERE!!!
FUN, FOOD & FELLOWSHIP!!

Field Day is ALMOST HERE (Saturday & Sunday, June 25 & 26) and the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society (RARS) would like to invite all ham operators and interested persons to participate in our Field Day set-up on the beautiful Carroll’s farm near Apex (address below). You do NOT have to be a member of the club! A license is NOT required! We’ll have plenty of licensed hams to serve as the legally required “control operators.”

In fact, there will be a special GOTA (Get On The Air) station for people with little to no experience or those getting back into the game!

If you have questions when you get there, Field Day leaders will be wearing reflective vests and name tags.

We will be setting up starting at 10AM on Friday, following the ARRL Field Day rules. If you want to learn about station set-ups, putting up antennas, and setting up the famous AB-577 “rocket launcher” mast, formerly with the US Army, THIS is the place to be! Yes, it’s work, but also a lot of fun and learning.

We essentially take meadows and wooded areas, turn them into independent communications centers (with our own generators) with world-wide communications capabilities, and then turn it back into a meadow on Sunday afternoon. It’s an amazing transformation!!

Back at 10AM on Saturday for final set-up, with official Field Day operating going from 2PM Saturday to 2PM Sunday. Yes, we’ll be going all night, depending on band conditions and availability of operators.

Even if you have NO EXPERIENCE, we will train you if you like. We use both an radio operator and a logger (on the laptop computer) at each station, so after observing a while, you can begin doing logging… simple, just typing into the laptop. Then, if you like, after participating up close, you can slide into the operator’s chair and make contacts yourself. It’s fun for me as a 50+ year licensed ham, and fun for people just doing it for the first time.

We want to make a lot of contacts, and we also want to have fun, and we do both!!

In between set-up and operating and logging, there’s lots of chances to fellowship with other great ham operators, swap stories, hear about things you may not be familiar with and just enjoy being around other people who agree that ham radio is a GREAT hobby!!

And FOOD!!! Friday night we’ll have pizza for the Friday set-up crew, and Saturday night we’ll have a catered meal (including, but not limited to BBQ!!) for all the gang. And all day all three days, there will be lots of cold water, soft drinks and snacks… calorie counting is NOT allowed!!

Sunday lunch will consist of the abundant left-overs with additional food as necessary!

We can use both phone and CW ops, so if you like the dits and dahs, we have a place for you!!

Please feel free to contact me if you’d like more information, curt@w4cp.com

Field Day comes but once a year… DON’T MISS IT!!!

We’re doing it at Carroll’s farm, 4501 Friendship Rd., Apex, NC (see the map image at the bottom of this page and Google Maps for directions.)

Hope to SEE YOU THERE!!!

Contact me at curt@w4com if you have ideas or want to volunteer.