Field Day 2019

Join us for Field Day on Saturday, June 22, and make a few contacts. This year we will have several radio stations on the air communicating with people around the world. Our special “Get on the Air” station is staffed by mentors who will show you how to use the equipment to make contacts. You also can visit the Satellite station and listen as we contact other radio amateurs through Earth-orbiting satellites that were designed and built by radio amateurs! At our digital station we use text-message-like exchanges, but over the radio. At our Morse code station you’ll see people communicate using the dits and dahs of Morse code even today. And our “Phone” station lets you watch a radio amateur “run a frequency,” quickly making one voice contact after another.

We will be setting up in the morning of Friday, June 21. Operations start at 11:00 am on Saturday, June 22, and end at 11:00 am on Sunday June 23, when we will begin teardown.

Location

CAL FIRE Training Center, 13575 Empire Grade, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. (Directions. Note: if you are driving up Empire Grade from Santa Cruz, then you will go past CAL FIRE Station 31 at 7276 Empire Grade and continue another 6 miles to the CAL FIRE Training Center at 13575 Empire Grade where we have set up our radio stations. The entrance to the training center on the left side of Empire Grade looks like the photo above.)

Frequencies

The local simplex frequency in and around the site will be 147.555, ARES TAC 14, which is assigned to the SLV area. Questions about equipment positioning on Friday should be on that frequency. If you are one of the people towing a trailer, be on that frequency upon entering the gate.

For wide-area talk-in on Friday we’ll be using W6WLS (147.18 (+), PL 94.8. W6WLS is linked with KI6FKX in Salinas 147.27 (+), PL 94.8.

Schedule

Setup is on Friday at 9:00 AM. Actual Field Day operations begin at 11:00 AM on Saturday.