Post-Field Day sad news to report.

[Grant Hopper]

The cake did not survive.

However everything else did.

An incredible weekend of working as a team, meeting new people and exposing them to amateur radio, and operating for the full 24 hours of the event.

So many people to thank and for so many things. I'm sure I'll miss some of the things and people so I welcome others to add to my list. In no particular order I want to thank everyone that came because everyone contributed.

Thank you to:

Kirk, N7UK for bringing the Kureg, coffee stuff, the "cowboy caviar", the raspberry jam to go on the french toast and the other food stuffs, and for operating so much!

Paolo, KK7JCN for the snacks and berries and for being a first class chef for lunch on Saturday as well as tirelessly helping with ALL the things that needed to be done Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Laurence, W7LES for the IC-7300 and power supply, and the hard work on Friday setting up (especially with helping get the place clean of all the bird poo and junk and getting things put back together.)

Greg, W7BXF for the power distribution cables, the garden hose, desk lamps and so many other little things and being a huge help on Friday and Sunday, and for that amazing rolling storehouse you call your truck.  You truly had all the little bits we needed right in there.

David, W7CF for bringing the wonderful food, especially the 16 lbs of brisket, the wonderful smells and being a fantastic chef!  On top of that, being there for the entirety of field day from Friday afternoon to Sunday, and never too tired to help with literally every single aspect of field day (including on the air!)

Kevin, KI7DEE for all the computer support, building the network, climbing up the ladder so many times to hang network, power and RF cables, taking so many photos and video so we could remember the weekend, and operating so much.

Randy, W7RWH for bringing the two towers and the good conversation, not to mention helping with operating late into the night.

Don, KE7ARH for bringing the patriotic bear, the pop tarts, and the great attitude AND being the guy that saw the gaps AND the guy that got all the things done that needed doing! And for sitting down at a radio and learning new modes and skills!  Truly what Field Day is about.

Mike, WB7FJG for bringing the VHF station antennas, coax and the CW skills that kept us on the air all night long, not to mention all the help with cleaning and removing the moss and for getting the place put back together before we were even able to start setting up, and sticking around to help with all the last tear-down tasks.

Andrew, N7XE for the drone footage, the troubleshooting, all the hard work of getting stations built and on the air, and tirelessly helping others (and lots of operating too.)

Vickie, KD7LAW for the Costco runs, making sure that we had the critical chocolate cake and all the other little things, and helping with what ever needed doing

Scott, N7SS for pretty much everything, but especially for being a great co-coordinator.

And Icom America and Ray Novak, N9JA for the loan of the IC-7300MK2 and the goodies.

We really couldn't have had a great weekend without all of you working together so well.

We also appreciated all our visitors, some of which I didn't get to meet.  From our visitors sign in, I want to thank:

Michael Sterba, KG7HQ

Shelly Sterba, KC7NQC

Kevin Ayres, KJ7TAS

Jarrod Dibble SnoCoDEM

Rachel Smith, SnoCODEM

Eric Torres, SnoCoDEM

Lloyd Chang, KJ7JQU from Icom America

Shane Ruangdet, K7UWQ from Icom America

Steve Davis, KI7ICL

Nate 

Richard Tufteland, KE7DQC

And his grandson

We were incredibly grateful to the Camp Edwards staff for getting the site sorted out for us prior to our arrival, with a nicely mowed lawn, clean facilities and a lot of tables and chairs so we didn't need to haul a bunch!

All of our antennas went up without a hitch thanks to Randy's towers and KB7WSD's pneumatic launcher which made getting lines up into the trees relatively easy (just two shots.)  The network(s) (power, and data) worked well, and we're grateful to the SnoCoDEM for the resources that they contributed.

Setup went smoothly and all the teams did a great job and hit their goals.  We had our four stations mostly active except for meal times and even then....  We had great food thanks to David, and great times thanks to all the teamwork.

While there were plenty of things that didn't work exactly the way we had planned, hoped, or wanted, we did have a good weekend and the all-day openings on 10, 15, and 20 were really quite something.  I personally was able to work a large number of stations in 15m very late into the evening (even had a run for more than an hour), and we had a lot of CW activity as well as FT-8 activity in addition to the usual sideband.  40 and 80 were busy and we got a variety of contacts all night long.

We hope you had a good time and we're glad you came.  If you didn't make it this year, we really hope you'll plan to visit or participate with us for the weekend in 2027!

73,

Grant Hopper

KB7WSD

MicroHAMS club Secretary

MicroHAMS club Field Day Co-Chair

P.S. If you have feedback about what went well and what might be improved or added, feel free to REPLY ALL to this email so both Scott and Grant will see your emailed thoughts.