08/01/2008 | K5RKW We Rode the Waves in Royse City

This years field day exercise was a combined effort of the Rockwall Amateur Radio Club and the Trinity Valley Amateur Radio Club using the Rockwall Club Call K5RKW - 2A NTX. Our site was Royse City Middle School.

The combined Field Day (The Rockwall Amateur Radio Club and Trinity Valley Amateur Radio Club) was a huge success - there was even talk of more joint projects between our two clubs.

This was a really comprehensive demonstration of the capabilities of 21st Century Amateur Radio. APRS was demonstrated to visitors, D-STAR was Demonstrated to visitors, our GOTA station was powered entirely by battery with a solar recharging panel. We were visited by the head of the Rockwall County Emergency Management who also brought out his son to see the event There was also an 11 foot wide kite flying overhead to attract attention - how cool is that!

Rusty, KB5RP, was in charge of the GOTA station and Paul, KE5RMZ, was the GOTA Coach. Travis Wendt, who is Rustys grandson, made 20 contacts on the GOTA station. Two Royse City Girl Scouts, Dezyrae Nantz and Sarah Kazlow, earned their technology badges by their contacts with North Dakota, South Dakota and British Columbia.

We were visited on Saturday by Leslie Gibson, a reporter for the Royse City Herald Banner. (This lady was interested - she even came back at 10:00 P.M.) She wrote a very nice article about our Field Day which was published July 8, 2008. You can find the article archived online at:

http://www.roysecityheraldbanner.com/archivesearch/local_story_190181042.html -- KE5CGL