2026 SFLARC Winter Field Day
SFLARC and Horizons GMRS teamed up for another successful Field Day event. When the ruffians pull together, some interesting things happen!
This was our first Field Day at our new location, a private farm in the Redlands. With some ruffian ingenuity and a skid steer, a 65’ telescopic tilt-over tower was erected. On this tower was mounted a dual band aluminum J-pole, a huge HF delta loop, an HF rotatable dipole, and a wire HF dipole. The two wire antennas were using a secondary tower and mast system for additional supports. On the ground we had a portable Chameleon BV antenna system (which kicked the llama’s ass BTW and made 174 contacts) and a CB dipole. The Chameleon antenna was proof positive that you can have a successful HF setup even in a restrictive HOA type community.
Rig wise our crew was running an Icom 7300, Yaesu FT1X, FT991’s, FT891’s, President Washington CB, VERO headless dual bander, meshtastic, Motorola GMRS mobile rig, the latest in SDR, and a 102 year old Crosley regenerative portable receiver. Everything was on battery power. Only one solar array was deployed this year as our members battery capacity has reached the point of running through the weekend with no need to charge.
You might be wondering why there was GMRS, CB and a vintage radio at a Field Day event? The founders of SFLARC have believed since day one that ham clubs need to embrace other radio hobbyists, not shun them like many ham clubs do. Our future hams will come from one of the many radio related hobbies. The elitist ham attitude needs to be put out to pasture if our hobby is to grow. Now back to the event details!
On the receive only side we had a gent show up with the latest in SDR laptop setups and a DSP 2 Malahit handheld SDR. That gent left our event as a newly minted GMRS license holder and perspective ham. The technical flip side of this was a 1924 Crosley 51P AM regenerative receiver (before it became a brand of cheap Chinese record players). The 102 year old radio was up and running complete with era correct Brandes headset for folks to experience radio as it was a century ago.
Speaking of tech, a contact through the ISS was made onsite. W4NTR brought his portable satellite coms setup and got one in at about 5deg over horizon. This resulted in another ham jumping on the satellite coms bandwagon. Money was spent. Hope his XYL don’t find out!
We ran a ham test session at this years WFD. Based on the interest in onsite testing, our test liaison will setting up a tablet based testing system. No more paper tests. Can’t wait for that to materialize! Thanks to the Dade Radio Club of Miami for being our test sponsors.
As has always been done in SFLARC and Horizons GMRS events, food and beverage were provided free of charge. Donations were happily accepted but not required of anyone. On deck was brisket, arroz con gandules with pork (Puerto Rican rice and beans with pork), Cuban lasagna (a layer of rice and beans, a layer of roasted pork, and a layer of cassava topped with pork cracklings), mini croissant sandwiches, a cheese plate, chips, flan, and tres leches desserts. To wash it down, soda, water, beer, single malt whiskey, bourbon, and believe it or not a mason jar of apple pie ‘shine was on hand. Yeah, we roll like that!
There’s two pages of pics so don’t forget to toggle over to page two!
We’re still inputting logs and such. We may not come in as top tier competitors but the good times and camaraderie were all top notch.
