November 7, 2019
NORAC's participation in the ARRL Field Day 2019 was a huge success. The official results have just been posted and we did very very well in regards to points:
https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/2019/Field-Day-2019-FinalQSTResults.pdf
http://www.arrl.org/results-database
Our group ranked second in Canada - yes second in all of Canada in the 1A category! And for a Western group, that's an exceptional result. Overall in the 1A category, we ranked 37th out of 142 groups.
First Canadian place went to the 25-participant-strong Union Metropolitaine des Sans-filistes de Montreal group from Quebec. Congratulations to VE2UMS on the Canadian 1A win! With just over double our QSO count, they had a good go in competing with the strong American groups. VE2UMS ranked 15th in the 1A category.
Just behind us in number of QSOs were our neighbours, the West Kootenay ARC. Congrats to you folks on your success as well!
For NORAC, our second place in category is a surprising result as we usually see more QC and ON groups ahead of us. Perhaps the usual central Canadian groups moved up a category or two? We did give it a good effort this year though, and really squeezed all we could out of phone, CW and digital modes. If you attended the event, you might recall that HF conditions were very poor on the Saturday, and we needed to shut down for an hour and a bit for weather, but we made up for it with exceptional QSO rates on Sunday morning.
Do we change classes next year?
Do we run higher power or QRP?
Do we attempt to run the whole event from battery?
Do we switch to having the event in a public place?
Do we switch to having the event take place in the woods to reduce the noise floor further?
Do we make it an even bigger party with the addition of a cook tent?
Make sure your ideas are heard when we begin planning for ARRL Field Day 2020 in the spring of next year.
Congratulations to everyone who participated in NORAC's ARRL Field Day 2019 event,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Vice-President 2017-2020, technical committee member and FD2019 coordinator
Ps: The 2020 ARRL Field Day will take place on June 27 - 28, 2020. Mark your calendars now!