Another Boschveldt QRP Club Field Day is in the books. The weekend started out rainy, but the weather improved for the rest of the weekend. The inclement weather didn’t stop us from having a good time.
As we’ve done for the past five years, we camped out on private property owned by a local businessman. There were only three of us this year: Ed K3YTR, Glen NK1N, and me. On the air, we operated in category 2A (battery) running QRP. We used our club callsign, W3BQC.
Given the lousy weather, I kept my antenna simple this year. I used a 29.5-foot vertical fed with my homebrew weather-resistant 9:1 unun. NK1N used an 85-foot inverted L, which performed very well for him. Once again, we used a battery operated Wi-Fi access point to network our logging laptops together.
This picture of NK1N’s set up shows the fog and rain on Friday. 
NK1N and K3YTR admiring the trailer Ed K3YTR rented for the weekend 
Glen NK1N testing out his gear on Friday 
WB3GCK’s tent with my vertical to the right of the tree 
Our common food prep area gave us a place to hang out during the rain. 
Ed K3YTR assembling his VHF antennas 
WB3GCK operating from the tent 
Glen NK1N operating under his canopy 
The radio equipment in my tent. This was the first Field Day for my little Evolve laptop. I used it for logging, CW keying, and rig control. 
It’s just not a Boschveldt Field Day without a campfire.
I primarily operated 40M CW, while Glen covered 20M and 80M. We both made contacts on 15M CW. Glen had a contact with a station in Croatia and one in Hawaii. I think the Hawaii contact was a Boschveldt QRP Field Day first. By Saturday night, the weather had improved enough for us to take a break and swap some tall tales around the campfire.
The weekend was not without some equipment issues. Glen and I both had batteries fail. Fortunately, we had spares on hand, so our operations weren’t affected. K3YTR also had to spend some time troubleshooting his setup. I also had an issue with the Digirig Mobile interface that I planned to use to send a radiogram via Winlink (VARA-FM). However, Glen was able to successfully send the radiogram via HF.
On Sunday morning, we operated for a few hours before shutting down early to pack up. We had some rain and thunderstorms headed our way, so we wanted to pack up while everything was still dry. (The rain started about an hour after we left.)
We ended up with 233 CW contacts. No records were broken, but the three of us had a great time.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 
Great job guys!!!
I did FD with PhilMont MRC at Ft Washington State Park.
I was primarily the CW guy…..140 contacts with 67 Ft end fed wire.
Greg
WA3GM
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Great job! When I was up at Evansburg State Park last week, I was talking to a park ranger who said the Phil-Mont group was going to be at Ft. Washington. My cot is pretty comfortable, but it sure was good to sleep in my own bed again. 🙂 73, Craig WB3GCK
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Yes we are there every year.
I do not stay overnight any more. I just come back the next day.
Greg
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Look like you had a nice time. CW wasn’t working well where we were so I mainly ran FT8. We had a lot of fun. I love my random wire antenna. It is my favorite. It’s park friendly too. No holes in the ground or wires in the trees. 73
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