We recently received the club certificate for participation in the 2025 Winter Field Day event!
- March 10, 2025
Contests & Events
It has been cold in NW Ohio. But natural disasters don’t wait for perfect weather, and neither does the Defiance County Amateur Radio Club (DCARC). On Saturday, January 25th the DCARC took part in Winter Field Day (WFD). WFD is an event that aims to help amateur radio operators improve their preparedness for disasters and enhance their operational abilities even in adverse conditions.
The purpose is for participants to go out and setup a temporary station in an effort to improve emergency preparedness skills. This station consists of a few radio transmitters, temporary antennas that span several feet, and coax to connect the two together. Using this system, radio operators use different radio frequencies and modes to make contacts. The operators leverage these contacts to send and receive information worldwide. Different modes consist of regular voice contacts (one operator talking to another operator), digital (computer to computer over RF) and morse code.
Participation in this event also allowed for a lot of fun and conversations off the radio waves. The DCARC enjoyed making contacts with 34 different states and 6 different countries. If you would like to know more, or are interested in amateur radio, we would love to talk to you about it. Check out our Facebook page or email us at dcarc.k8von@gmail.com
- February 13, 2025
What an amazing year we had in 2024! So many fun events and get togethers as we continued to learn from one another and improve in our amazing hobby. The pinnacle of which was our 2nd place finish in the OSPOTA contest. But the year consisted of much more than that one event, as we also participated in Winter Field Day, Summer Field Day, Amateur Radio Day and a few others.
So much fun was had, and it culminated in our club Christmas party as we finished out the year. The party was well attending, the conversation joyful and the food delightful. But as I reflected on everything, it seemed as though there should have been more.
So this year, in 2025, we hope to provide more. This year at our club Christmas party we look to recognize and give awards to radio operators who are furthering our hobby. But rather than just “spring” these awards on you, we want to let you know the categories and let you set them as goals for 2025. The awards are as followed;
1 – WAS (SSB) in 2025
2 – WAS (CW) in 2025
3 – WAS (Digital) in 2025
4 – Most contacts (SSB)
5 – Most contacts (CW)
6 – Most contacts (Digital)
7 – Most total contacts (all modes)
8 – Longest distance unassisted VHF/UHF contact
9 – Attend most DCARA meetings/nets
10 – Attend most events (Breakfast, Summer Field Day, etc)
We hope these goals will encourage you to operate more in 2025. We also hope they will fuel excitement and friendly competition. Also, we hope this will foster discussions for new categories/awards in 2026! From all of us, we hope you have a radio-active 2025!
- January 28, 2025
When: Saturday, January 18, 2025 – 2:00PM EST to 6:00PM EST
The DCARC will be participating in this contest / exercise.
2 contest stations will be on the air and a 3rd for coordination and spotting on the local repeaters.
The frequencies used are as follows:
52.510 52.525 52.540
146.460 146.490 146.520
446.000 446.025 446.050 446.100
All transmissions are FM Simplex
The contest exchange is your Callsign, County, and 6-character Grid Square or just ‘QTH’ if you are operating from home. You DO NOT need to be an Ohio station to participate. All Are Welcome!
We will be notifying our current operating frequencies on the Defiance, Paulding, Bryan, Auburn and Fort Wayne repeaters every 15 minutes. After the notifications we will be monitoring the Defiance repeater for any questions.
For all contest info, visit: https://ohsimplex.org/
73 and Catch you On the Air
- January 12, 2025
On Saturday, September 7th, the DCARC joined together at Independence Dam State Park for the annual Ohio State Parks on the Air contest. Many members came out to experience this contest and either operate a radio, help with logging, or even just provide support. Every member there was appreciated as it was a long day.
Scoring a total of 25,000 points was our goal this year. In recent years that would rank us somewhere in the top 5. But every year is different with some years higher than others. This is based on propagation as well as the number of parks (multipliers) activated.
Propagation was in our favor as we made contacts with 10 DX entities, 39 individual states, 49 different Ohio State Parks, and 511 total contacts. This all added up to a fun but exhausting day. But we believe the work was worth it as we totaled 25,039 points!
Obviously, we are excited for our success. Especially as we look back over the last 10 years from 2013-2023. In those 10 years, K8VON took part in OSPOTA only 5 times. During those 5 outings our highest score previously was in 2023 when we scored 6,270. This was far above the other four outings. In fact, if we added our scores over the 2013-2023 OSPOTA contest, we accumulated just 8,623 points.
That’s right, this year in 2024, we almost tripled our score over the previous ten! That is amazing and speaks to the devotion and dedication of our club to this event.
All the logs have been submitted, and now we will wait to hear of the results. I will assume that we will hear of the results in early November. After all, that is the regular release date of the results. Until then, rest up, and then get out into the Parks to get ready for next year!
73, Kevin-W8NI
- September 11, 2024
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While the bands may not have been up to par for NVIS Day, the group made up for it with the usual food, food, comradery, and food.
As usual, thanks go out to the Defiance County EMA for use of the EOC building.
Pictures courtesy of Kathy Noethen.
- April 28, 2024
We are one week away from World Amateur Radio Day. And this year we will return to Pontiac Park to celebrate. Many of us will be arriving round 8:00am to setup tables, flyers, radio’s and antenna’s. The purpose is to expose the public to the joy’s of amateur radio, and answer any questions they may have.
Everyone is invited to come out and participate. You can be involved by making contacts on the radio, answering questions from the general public, or even ASKING questions of your fellow HAMs. And although we will be near the Pontiac Park boat ramp until approximately 4:00pm, you can come and go as you wish. Come out and celebrate for an hour or the whole time.
World Amateur Radio day is a celebration of the formation of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU). Which happened on April 18th 1925 in Paris, France. Now, 100 years later, the ARRL set this years theme to be: “A Century of Connections: Celebrating 100 years of Amateur Radio Innovation, Community, and Advocacy”.
The ARRL points out that this Celebration “…is not a contest but rather an opportunity to talk about the value of amateur radio to the public and our fellow amateur colleagues.” It is also a great opportunity to recruit potential members and learn from other amateurs. We hope you will take this opportunity to join us.
- April 10, 2024
Hello All,
Winter Field Day is coming up once again.
January 27th, 2024 starting at 2:00pm local time.
Our location is once again the Ney Church of God, 03413 OH-15, Ney, OH 43549
Plan to show up early enough to set up anything you bring.
It will be a potluck for the food. Please let me know what you are planning to bring so I can coordinate that. We also could use some extra heat in the barn.
It would also be nice if there are some club members that can spend some time demonstrating to anyone interested, especially newer Hams, things like antenna setup, finding a clear spot on the band, working CW, etc. Let me know so we can make a list and schedule to post.
Lastly (for now) I’m starting a list of DCARC translations for Winter Field Day terms…
1. Winter Field Day
translation: Winter Food Fest
2. Going to make a lot of contacts
translation: Really going to pile that plate up
3. Multibander
translation: Can carry two or more plates
4. QRM
translation: Quit blocking the crock pot
5. Working a pile up
translation: See #2
6. Dup Check
translation: Two crockpots, same stuff
7. QSY
translation: Going back for dessert
8′ QRT
translation: I’m full
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
73 John
- December 20, 2023