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Most 2021 Field Day Participants Entered in Class D

07/15/2021

In the second year in which rule waivers were in place for ARRL Field Day, some 4,815 entries were received at ARRL Headquarters by July 13 — the majority in Class D (Home Stations). Last year saw more than 10,213 entries and 18,886 participants. Before the pandemic, in 2019, 3,113 entries were submitted, with 36,420 total participants.

“It appears that larger groups were more the norm in pre-pandemic times, as expected,” ARRL Contest Program Manager Paul Bourque, N1SFE, observed. “From the discussions I’ve been having with participants, even though some groups gathered in larger numbers this year, many participants chose either to gather in smaller groups or to operate solo from home as Class D or Class E stations. Although I don’t think we’ll see the number of entries that we did last year, we’re close in terms of the number of participants.”

With about 2 weeks to go until the entry submission deadline, the tally of participants reported is 16,166. They made just north of 1 million total contacts.

Andy Goss, AA5JF, took part in the first-ever Field Day for the Augusta University Amateur Radio Club (WA4AUG), which set up in the Georgia school’s Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPaR) Center.

“FD was already a success on Saturday, with the stations working smoothly, and lots of local visitors dropping by. An hour after sunrise on Sunday, we were counting our points, when Darby, KK4PEQ, announced he had just worked a station on 6-meter phone — just playing around on 50 MHz using the 20/15/10 tribander,” Goss said. “He stayed on 6 for five QSOs, but we quickly [moved] to 10 and 15, finding those bands were open to just about everywhere, and we doubled our score in just 3 hours. What a rush!

There’s still time to submit your 2021 Field Day entry. Most of this year’s Field Day entries have been submitted online(worth 50 bonus points!), although some 50 paper logs have been mailed in. Participants can check the Entries Received page to make sure their entries were received and complete. If the entry status indicates “Pending documents,” either the required dupe sheet (or in lieu of that, a Cabrillo log file) or supporting documentation of claimed bonus points is missing. Bourque said some 250 entries fall into that category right now. Participants can add documentation or edit their entries by following the link provided in the confirmation email sent to the email address provided upon entry, up until the entry submission deadline. Field Day entries must be submitted online or postmarked no later than 2059 UTC on July 27, 2021.

The breakdown of Field Day entries by class, as of July 13, showed 4,815 total entries, with 613 in Class A, 582 in Class B, 57 in Class C (Mobile), 2,619 in Class D, 858 in Class E, and 86 in Class F.

For his 2021 Field Day, Scott Hanley, WA9STI, took to the woods — the Los Padres National Forest — at a site some 7,400 feet elevation in the mountains overlooking California’s Central Valley. He operated as WA6LE in Class 1B. He put 358 contacts in the log on CW and phone — short of his 400-contact goal. “Almost all activity was on 20, 40, and 75/80 meters to a G5RV or end-fed 20-meter dipole,” Hanley said. “Six meters did not open, so only had two local SSB contacts and only 3 contacts on 2-meter FM.”    



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