Welcome to the Frederick Amateur Radio Club!

Winter Field Day 2023 was both an adventure and a learning experience.  While the weather could hardly have been nicer, it is still winter and with even a slight breeze, it was chilly.  Rain earlier in the week made things a bit sloppy in the field, but hardly slowed us down.

The morning started clear and bright.  Aaron (KC3QPJ) stopped by early for a shakedown cruise of his drone, seen here ready to drop a line for one end of Sandy’s (KB3EOF) off-center dipole.  Other antennas included an end-fed 160M half-wave (yes, 80M long piece of wire) graciously loaned to us by Lou WZ3J, as well as a Wolf River Coil vertical. As the morning progressed, radios and power (100% battery/solar – including lights) were sorted out. Many hams stopped by to see our setup and say hello.

Just after 2pm, we started making contacts.  At some point, Mrs MMM stopped by bearing chicken, potato salad and rolls, and later in the evening brought over a pot of chili.  We were set.

As the sun set just after 4:30, the air quickly chilled.  We shuffled things in the shed to make better use of the wood-burning stove.

When full darkness arrived, Steve W3ATN brought out his telescope, providing an extraordinary view of the “green comet” (comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)), as well as the craters of the moon, the stripes of Jupiter and a distant star nebula.  Truly a bonus.

As the night wore on, and temperature cooled, the last of us called it quits before midnight.  The Sunday forecast called for rain in the late morning, when we returned in the morning, we made our last contacts and began the tear-down process in hopes of beating the rain.  We ended up with well over 100 contacts across various modes and bands.  So, it was a good event and like many things in life, we’ll know more for next time.  And Summer Field Day (June 24/25) is only a few months away!