The question of Winter Field Day came up during the last club meeting.
Winter Field Day is held on the 4th full weekend in January. For 2027, it will be held on January 23rd and 24th. The 30-hour operational period starts at 1600 UTC on Saturday (11 am EST), the 23rd, and ends at 21:59 UTC on Sunday, the 24th (4:59 pm EST). Stations
may begin setting up no earlier than 16:00 UTC (11 am EST) on the Friday before. However, cumulative set-up time shall not exceed 12 hours.
Having given it a little thought, if we wanted to participate as a club this year, we could start small and look to only operate one of the days. We obviously do not have a problem with equipment, Radios, antennas, power (we can run battery). And a location
should not be an issue since as long as we only operate during daylight hours, we could use any of the parks we normally run POTA at. Running in a park would also count as a POTA activation for those that wanted to participate.
The limiting factor will be trying to secure a suitable shelter. We will need something that we can operate a couple of stations while providing some heat. For example, a cabin tent would probably be suitable along with something like a buddy Heater. So,
the initial question is, does anyone in the club have something suitable we could use if we decided to participate?
Another option would be to use a permanent structure which is also permitted for WFD, just has a different class. So, something like the visitor center or Nature Center at Washington's Crossing would work. Another option could be a CERT EOC.
I am also sharing the link here if anyone wants to take a look:
Home - WFDA
73 Rob, N2UP