ARRL Field Day 2025
Much like my 2008 post, my pal Joel (W4LL) and I (N0JDC) operated a ham radio station for ARRL Field Day in a park near my house. Field Day is an event where amateur radio operators across North America simulate emergency conditions–improvised locations, no AC power, getting chewed on by mosquitos–and attempt to contact as many other stations as possible.
You earn “points” in Field Day by making contacts with other radio operators, and you can earn bonus multipliers for how you do it. For example, running from emergency power, charging your emergency power from renewable sources, running radio low power, and running digital modes over the radio.
Joel and I decided that the best bonus multipliers would be all of them. We set up two radios and capped our transmit power at five watts. In ham speak, QRP.
Next problem was power. How do you power a field-expedient, two radio station on batteries? Turned out to be easy with the 123kWh battery parked in my garage…a/k/a a Cybertruck. I charged that from solar prior to the event and plugged our station into the truck’s inverter.
Last thing: digital modes. Back in 2008 we ran a bunch of PSK31, but this year the new hotness was FT8. FT8 is highly automated once you initiate a contact: the back and forth of exchanging call signs and grid squares is pretty much done by the software itself.
FT8 turned out to be amazing at five watts, covering the entire United States and then some. In fact we both logged a contact in Japan (though not for Field Day) using 5W through our simple dipole antennas.
Other equipment stayed very much the same as prior years. Two Kenwood radios, two Buddipole antenna systems, two laptops. The truck handled the power draw easily. I started the event at 94% charge and had 60% charge remaining afterwards.
Joel and I both stayed up the entire 24 hours operating both radios. Our results: 369 unique contacts, map shown below. And we very nearly won our section, behind by just a handful of points. There were easy bonuses that would’ve put us over the top. So…next year.
