The clubs represented at the Greater Wichita Field Day grew again this year:  1) Boeing Employee Amateur Radio Society, 2) Wichita Amateur Radio Club, 3) W0VFW, 4) Newton Amateur Radio Club, and the 5) Hesston College Amateur Radio Club. 

This year our group accumulated the highest number of QSOs and the highest point total that our clubs have ever put together before.  For the first time we had more CW contacts than voice and more voice than PSK-31 contacts.  We had the highest number of CW and PSK-31 contacts than ever before!  Three PSK-31 contest stations covering 10, 15, 20, 40, and 80m!  Similarly, we had two CW stations with an outstanding 20m and 40m half square antennas. 

This is really a three day event for our group!  On Friday evening during the setup, Samantha Wing (KC0MTM) and Becky Farlow (daughter of KB0YHT) coordinated an Applebee's supper.  The Salvation Army - a served organization of the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) - provided lunch on Saturday.  Don Urban, KC0BVX once again cooked an awesome Barbeque supper on Saturday evening.  Everybody was on their own for Sunday and the cleanup.

This year we had a member of the Sedgwick County Commissioners visit our field day site:  Gwen Welsheimer.  Chance Hayes, the Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the Wichita National Weather Service, attended to see how the SKYWARN members in attendance were doing on Field Day.  We had a group of VE's provide a testing session on Saturday - 2 new hams and one upgrade resulted.  Terry Gattis, K9TAG provided a powerful solar charging setup with batteries - we were able to power the entire GOTA station for the duration of field day!

The GOTA station (K0W) - Captained by James Whitfield, N5GUI - was primarily manned by Joey Jones, KD0HTG and Andrew Farlow.  However, three potentially new hams made a few contacts, too.

James Whitfield, N5GUI, built the triplexer that was chronicled in the April QST.  We had pretty good luck with it until we believe someone changed bands out of the range of the filter and the smoke was released from the new triplexer.  An interesting experiment, nonetheless, and completed in record time by James!

In the middle of the night on Sunday morning, one of our generators decided to provide 170 volts instead of the normal 120 volts.  An APC was thoroughly baked and the voltage protection circuit melted in a power supply, but no other known damage.  A backup generator got us back on the air.

Brandon Trube, KD0HTI provided a trailer with our field day network server.  Over 500 feet of ethernet cable provided connections to our logging client computers.  Brandon got a good work out keeping the disparate computers, cable, and software talking together.  Within 15 minutes of the end of the contest, he provided the final logs for submittal. 

It is really amazing to see dozens of hams come together to make a 9A field day happen.  Years of practice and months of prior communication result in a very smooth event.  Thanks to everyone who supported the Greater Wichita Field Day in Wichita, KS this year!