Firstly, thanks to everyone that participated in this year’s FARA Winter Field Day effort. Overall, the event was a success with over 27 people (combined FARA, 4-H, and visitors) braving the frigid weather to participate, socialize, visit, and make QSOs. Again, FARA put the W4VA callsign on the air as a 4M (4 transmitters, mobile category,) utilizing the Fauquier 4-H trailer as well as the NB3A news van.

Beginning setup in 7* F temperatures on Saturday morning, W4VA was on the air by around 11:15 missing the official start by about 15 minutes. That wasn’t a huge loss as the event organizers had extended the operating time by over 24 hours and we elected to break down 3 hours early at 2pm on Sunday, so as to not lose the light. Utilizing 2 50ft Mastsystems masts, FARA erected a Palomar Engineers OCF as well as an 80/40m Fan Dipole constructed from scrap and a DXE 1:1 balun.

The fan dipole worked swimmingly, however, during teardown, we realized one leg of the OCF was completely disconnected from the eyebolt, explaining the underperformance of that antenna throughout the operating event.

The N4HKZ setup consisted of their typical hexbeam for 20-6 as well as their typical switchable UHF/VHF vertically polarized colinear and their Circularly polarized Eggbeater setup.

In fulfilling nearly all of the additional objectives (scoring bonus multipliers) this year, FARA increased the number of operators on the air making contacts by 6 to 14, up from 8 at the 2024 inaugural WFD. Extra operators led to extra operating increasing our QSO count from 657 in 2024 to 723 this year.

This year notable QSOs included a multitude of good satellite, both FM & SSB, and a 12-minute long Winlink email to send a 100kb photo. Fun was had all around, including some light JS8call as well as SSTV decoding with a cell phone.

All in all, we had a great time regardless of the freezing weather and look forward to 2026 Winter Field Day where we hope to see a continual increase in participation!

Below are some photos of the event (click to make larger) and a short video of a satellite QSO.

Nic, KY4OP, listening to a amateur radio linear satellite SSB QSO