Field Day
Field Day is our Annual celebration of amateur radio. It is meant to be an emergency drill to demonstrate how ham radio teams can quickly provide communication in the event of an emergency. We try to connect with the other 3500 stations around the U.S. and receive points for performing certain tasks, like setting up tents in a public park, using generators and inviting officials. It is always the 4th weekend of June.
Preparations for Field Day 2025 are in full swing.
Operators please sign up with the link provided in the e-mail for field day recruting, If you don’t have a LINK, please send an email to communications@ns9rc.org
We have a flyer for promoting our Field Day. If you are able to, please print it out in color and post it in a public place. Here is the flyer ->
Field Day 2025 - Important Dates and Times
Field Day Setup - June 27
The Storage locker team meets at 10:30 am. All other volunteers meet at Clarkson Park at 11:30 for lunch followed by setup of antennas.
Setup and Operating - June 28
Radio Setup starts at 7 am, Operating starts at 1pm, GOTO operates from 1pm to 6pm
Operation9ng and teardown - June 29
Operating stops at 1pm followed by tear down and clean up. GOTA station will operate from 9am to 1pm.
Current Station Roster
It is up to the stations captain to make the final decision for operator assignment. To sign up use the links provided from the recruiting e-mail. If you don’t have the links, contact communications@ns9rc.org.
Upcoming K3 Hands On Time with Marty
If you signed up as operator and want to get some hands-on time with the type of radio we will be using at Field Day, attend one of the two sessions at Marty’s house.
June 7th 1pm until 5 PM,
June 14th 1 PM - 5 PM.
Field Day Preparation and Test Session May 10th
Eight club members came together on March 10th to give our laptops and the logging program N1MM and good work out. We simulated our field day setup with all relevant pieces of equipment. The throughput was simulated with scripts on each station which logged a new QSO every couple second. With a throughput of close to 2000 QSOs per hour we did not notice any hiccups or delays.
We can report that we are ready for action.
NSRC Field Day Activities 2025
It is a major event for the North Shore Radio Club, and we hope to have another successful event. However, such events don’t just happen, we need the support of volunteers who could set aside a couple of hours for set-up on Friday, operating Saturday and Sunday and for teardown on Sunday afternoon.
We will be again at the same location, Clarkson Park in Northfield.
We will start transporting equipment from our storage locker to the site on Friday morning, organize our gear and then hang antennas as soon as the official set-up time comes. We normally are done around 3pm.
The Saturday morning, we will setup the three radio operating stations, one for SSB/digital and two for CW. One of the CW stations can also be used for Digital.
The official start for operating is Saturday June 28th 18:00UTC and operating ends Sunday June 29th 20:59UTC. Swiftly there after we will begin teardown and pack everything up for next year.
There will be a couple Zoom meetings for the preparation of the event.
06/18 - 7:15pm to 8pm
07/02 - 7:15pm to 8pm (debriefing)
The information for the Zoom meeting is:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/5392163778?pwd=pNuDf3Z2K5iuMZbQZBdDcZ1KeIORxF.1&omn=85262844878
Meeting ID: 539 216 3778
Passcode: 9FzNuQ
Operators please sign up with the link provided in the e-mail for field day recruting, If you don’t have a LINK, please send an email to communications@ns9rc.org
In 2024 we had a very successful field day. Even some thunderstorms in the night, which forced us to shut down operations temporarily, we had top tier rankings.
We achieved a result of 12189 points. In detail we had:
2055 CW contacts (2 points each)
283 Digital contacts (2 points each)
446 SSB contacts (1 point each)
1945 bonus points (mostly from GOTA station)
This gave us the following ranking:
#22 of 4,319 ARRL submitted entries
#1 of all Illinois (133 entries)
#4 in class 3A of 1,254 entries
A big applause to all participants. We always look for operators, especially for the night hours. Stay tuned for announcements here and in the eMitter when recruiting starts.