CFMC’s Winter Field Day was held January 24-26, 2025 at Camp Bullfrog Lake in Willow Springs, Illinois.
Three days, two nights of radio and camping fun!
The results are in…
Winter Field Day, “…aims to help participants improve their preparedness for disasters and enhance their operational abilities in adverse conditions.”, according to the Winter Field Day Assn. Furthermore, to “…encourage a diverse range of activities, including the use of non-commercial power sources, the deployment of multiple antennas, establishing satellite contacts, and more.”
Winter Field Day 2025. January 24-26.
Both Winter Field Day and (statistically), the coldest month of the year are behind us. We all know how the weather went in January, but for those of you who couldn’t attend Winter Field Day at Camp Bullfrog in Willow springs, here’s a recap.
As you probably know, the club moves into a heated two room cabin for Winter Field Day, WFD, weekend. We arrived at the cabin on a beautiful, sunny, “refreshing” Friday afternoon. The volunteers stocked the cabin and began setting up the radios and our modest antenna farm. As the saying goes, and as Alan KC9IMF reminded us, “Many hands make light work”. Appetites grew so the WFD/Friday Night Social pizzas were ordered. Now normally we pass-the-hat to give the pizza delivery man a good tip, but Nate N9BBM wouldn’t hear of it. He dug deep into his own pocket and gave a generous gratuity to the pizza guy. Thanks Nate. By the time the pizza party was over, we had a nice campfire going in the firepit. Mike KD9SJC provided and delivered a half-cord of seasoned firewood to camp. As it turned out, that was enough to get us through the entire weekend with only a few pieces of firewood left over. This is the second WFD that Mike has supplied the firewood. Thanks Mike.
Only a few Hams spent the night but come morning the group’s numbers began to swell. They probably smelled the camp breakfast that club President Paul N9JZY was whipping up. Hot coffee, eggs, sausage, English muffins, juice, and doughnuts. During the day we had a steady flow of operators cycle through the cabin, some licensed, some not. It was great to see so many Ham-curious folks show up at our WFD event. There was no shortage of food. Everyone took to heart our request that attendees bring something to share with the group. Gourmet coffee, doughnuts, cookies, brownies, cheese platter, chips, vegie platter, and 807’s. And I thought the Holidays weren’t kind to my waistline! Oh, and some radio too. The official WFD Assn. results are in. See the certificate above. We made close to 300 contacts by voice (phone), CW, and JS8Call digital.
If we were giving a prize for Most QSOs, Kevin KD9ZDR would far and away be the winner with more than 80 QSOs, and Kevin was only here part of Saturday. Kudos Zeee-dee-arr. The rest of the phone QSOs were rounded out by too many operators to mention, including two YLs who are yet to be licensed. Dan W9SAU and David W9AIL teamed up to provide the club with 44 CW contacts. As you’ll recall, Dan and David ran the club’s CW net a short time ago. We also logged over 40 digital QSOs using JS8Call, a keyboard-to-keyboard digital messaging mode. Thanks to Bill N9WRP. JS8Call is one of the few digital modes allowed by the Winter Field Day Association. By the club’s education and Amateur Radio promotion standard, I feel like we did pretty good. As you know, CFMC doesn’t approach WFD as an “In it to win it” contest. Our objective is to meet the goals of the Winter Field Day Association, improve our individual skills, and to promote the hobby. To that I say, “mission accomplished”.
What, it’s lunch time already? Paul again put on his apron and chefs’ hat and grilled Brats, Italian sausage, and burgers. All the fixin’s too. Paul N9ISP again provided the beef for the grill. Delicious! Thanks Paul. Yada, yada, yada. More visiting, more radio, more campfire, more snacking. Gregory K9OY set up his Yaesu FTDX10 radio which included a 27” monitor which was mounted at the foot of a top bunk. The large screen made it easy for people to stand around the room and see exactly what was going on with the radio’s display and waterfall. A great learning tool. After some more operating one of the members showed up with a couple of large pizzas. A perfect appetizer for our main course of the day, Swedish meatballs. President Paul was again slaving over an electric skillet preparing a huge batch of Swedish meatballs and egg noodles. For this feast Alan KC9IMF suppled the meat. It’s amazing how much better fresh quality meat makes a dish as simple as Swedish meatballs. Yum! Thanks Alan. And thanks President Paul…you can take the rest of the weekend off.
Up bright and early Sunday morning we played some more radio, had coffee and doughnuts, and broke camp. We were all on our way home by noon. Can’t wait till Field Day in June.
Thanks, from the Officers and Board members to everyone who “played radio”, contributed to WFD, or just came to visit. Winter Field Day is in the books and was a great success. You made it happen. Looking to make Summer Field Day a success? We would like to stand-up a Field Day committee to help take some of the workload off the Officers and Board. Drop us a note at wa9orc@gmail.com if you’re interested
See all the Winter Field Day 2025 Pictures taken by our Members on our Facebook Page
