K5WHD - WILD HORSE DESERT HAMS ARC FIELD DAY 2011   For the fourth year in a row the Wild Horse Desert Hams Amateur Radio Club set up Field Day operations at the Kingsville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Carol Ann Anderson, the Executive Director of the KCVB, has welcomed us and allowed us to set up shop in the KCVB offices, put up as many antennas as we want including loading up the flag pole as a 40 meter vertical antenna, and run our radios for the whole weekend. It is hard for us to imagine any club having such a kind host for Field Day. Thanks, Carol Ann!!  

The action started Friday night when WA5SWC, Lynn Peters put up a 10 meter vertical antenna on top of a 40 foot pole. Saturday morning the whole club was out to string up and connect assorted antennas: 40 meter flag pole vertical, 80-40 dipole, DXC 40-10 dipole, 2 meter antenna.  

We had almost 100 percent of our club come out at various times to participate. We had one amateur who had to be traveling on Field Day weekend. To make up for him being AWOL we had three new amateurs get on the air for the first time at our Field Day. We also had one of our wayward members, who has been working way too many extra hours for way too long, show up to spend some time with us Saturday evening. That was a great treat.  

We had all the standard Field Day accoutrements: generators for emergency power demonstrations, solar panels and batteries for additional power demonstrations, and a literature table which included copies of news articles about ARES efforts at the many recent tornado disasters. Our publicity included the local newspaper, an article in South Texas Living magazine, an article in the KCVB Wrangler Newsletter, and a month long news item on the KCVB web page at www.kingsvilletexas.com. We had pizza, snacks and gallons of coffee.    

We were visited by our newly elected Kleberg County Judge, Juan Escobar, and elected Kleberg County Commissioner, Chuck Schultz. We were visited by officials from our served agencies; Tomas Sanchez, Jr. our Kleberg County Emergency Management Coordinator and Carol Ann Anderson of the KCVB. Mark Mireles, AD5CA, our ARES DEC, stopped by to check out our set up and visit with the club members.  

Because of our very public location at the Kingsville Convention and Visitors Bureau we gathered in a lot of visitor action. Not only did we have local Kingsvillians, we had international visitors checking out our operation. The KCVB is a tourist stopping point in Kingsville where visitors regularly get information on fun things to see and do in Kingsville and needed travel directions for the region. Our weekend at the KCVB allowed us to show off and demonstrate Amateur Radio to folks from Delaware, Nebraska, Washington State, all corners of Texas as well as folks traveling from Mexico and the United Kingdom. We got to enjoy a truly international Field Day which included radio contacts in Costa Rica, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii(not really international, but it feels like international).   

We used Winlink to send out our Field Day messages. We also discovered a great way to thank our Field Day host. Steve Phillips, K6JT, the net manager for TEX CW traffic net sent a greeting radiogram to our host, Carol Ann, at our Field Day location. We had the thrill of delivering that radiogram to her. It turned out to be the perfect way to involve our host and say thanks at the same time. If other clubs and Field Day groups need a way to rack up some Field Day radiograms this is a great idea; get with other groups and clubs and exchange radiograms on voice, CW, or digital thanking the hosts of your Field Day events.  

Now, Winlink is not all sunshine and roses for us. Some of our Field Day messages bounced back so we had to scramble to figure out why. After a bit of pondering the mysteries of digital radio in the 21st century, our digital amateurs were able to correct our errors and resend our messages successfully. It is good practice to use these tools on Field Day so we are ready to use them correctly should there be a real emergency. It is also a good opportunity to have the not so technical among us take a turn sending radiograms on a digital mode. That is part of what Field Day is all about.  

This year we had a great 10 meter antenna and great band conditions for 10 meters. We made almost as many 10 meter contacts at our 2011 Field Day as we made in the eight previous years. Club members all took turns on 10 meters as if that was the elite position to be in for Field Day. There were whoops and cheers for the most distant contacts and a bit of internal competition to see who made the most interesting contacts. 15 meters was hot for us also. There was more cheering when we snagged two Hawaiian stations, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.   

Everyone was exhausted by the end of Field Day. Taking down the antennas went a lot faster than putting them up, but it was a lot hotter Sunday afternoon than it was Saturday morning. But like modern, responsible campers, we took only pictures and left only foot prints. And the last man out mopped up the foot prints. When Carol Ann arrived back to work Monday morning she and her staff were amazed that the KCVB was cleaner than when we arrived Friday evening to start our set up. The Wild Horse Desert Hams tamely went home to get some much needed rest.