Representatives from The Central New York Amateur Radio Association spent this past weekend on a Field Day Road Trip.

Club President JJ Phillips (KC2FEV), Treasurer Deb Catlin (KD2IUY), and Board Member Thomas Catlin (KD2IUZ) traveled to Agawam,MA on invitation from the Hampden County Radio Association to share in the Field Day festivities.

The CNYARA club members made a stop in Newington,CT to visit the ARRL Headquarters, and visited the Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station (W1AW). While there, Thomas (KD2IUZ), spent approximately 20 minutes operating the station on 40 meters and made 14 contacts.

“The best part about operating the station was the pileup I got within the first 5 minutes of calling CQ. It was the first time I had ever worked a pileup.” Thomas said, “The equipment was awesome! I especially liked the foot operated transmit switch, since it left my hands free to operate the logging software on the computer.”

The members then traveled to School St. Park in Agawam, MA and joined up with the Hampden County Radio Association.

The facility in Agawam was very organized, but Deb (KD2IUY) reported that there was a lack of shade in the extreme heat of the weekend. “I was glad when the sun went down.” she said, “Things cooled off nicely after that.”

The approximately 100 attendees ranged in age from mid teens to mid 80’s. “It was great to see such a wide variety of age groups represented at the event.”, said Deb (KD2IUY).

All of the CNYARA club members reported that the event was the best organized they had seen. Each station was housed in its own tent, had a team captan, and all operators had a logging partner. Space was plentiful and the club was ready for any weather situation. All antennas and towers were of first quality construction. The food was delicious. The event was organized into teams for setup, operation, food prep, and tear down.

“We will certainly apply much of what we learned this weekend when we host our own event next year.”, said Deb (KD2IUY) “We got some great ideas from the HCRA and we can’t wait to share them with our other members.”

Field Day Road Trip pictures can be seen here.

This year the the Central New York Amateur Radio Association will be teaming up with the Hampden County Radio Association for Field Day.

We will be traveling to Agawam, MA to work in an exciting environment with an experienced team of Hams.

We will get the chance to operate four surperb towers with beams on 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters and dipoles for 80/75 meters.

There will also be a side-trip to visit the ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station giving our members a chance to see some of the wonderful history of Amateur Radio and perhaps operate under the W1AW call sign.

Interested members should contact CNYARA President, JJ Phillips (KC2FEV@yahoo.com) for more information.