N7WAH members are ready for the big one

Last June over 10,000 amateur radio operators from across the country participated in Field Day 2020. The objective was to see how many other stations you can contact in 24 hours. Because of covid restrictions our club chose to not set up our normal Field Day stations at Wahkiakum high school. Instead seven of our club members operated from home or mobile. Some operated batteries only, others used "shore power."

In the "from home" category, competing with thousands of others, we had Richard KC4ONA, Steve K7SH, Jim KG7WSQ and Dale KC7IVJ. In the low power portable category with 365 operators we had Jean KB7AJY. In the "mobile" operating category, out of 126 entries from across the USA, Bob WB6AGE placed 7th (from his car on mountain tops) and Ron W7ERY (using less than 5 watts of power) placed 30th.

Looked at from our division (OR, WA, AK, ID etc) competing with 631 stations, and some with very high power, Bob WB6AGE placed 59th and Richard KC4ONA placed 151st.

And from the most important perspective - those making contacts from inside Western Washington - out of 304 stations competing from WWA, Bob WB6AGE placed 20th, Richard KC4ONA placed 67th, Steve K7SH placed 73rd, Ron W7ERY placed 108th, Dale KC7IVJ placed 126th, Jean KB7AJY placed 158th, and Jim KB7WSQ placed 159th, A great showing by our club members!

Why is this important to you? If (when?) we have a catastrophic event in WWA that knocks out communications, the 20+ members of the Wahkiakum County Amateur Radio Club springs into action on two levels: within the county we use VHF to collect information and get it to shelters, fire halls, and the county EOC. Then to get that info out of the county to some other place in the USA not affected by the catastrophe, we use these Field Day skills and equipment. Our results show we are ready! We do this test every year in June, and we also do a second test every January. Come to the club meetings and check us out, every Tuesday. See our club website for details: N7WAH.net.