The Klub regularly participates in the ARRL Field Day and Winter Field Day activities, the flagship Emergency Preparedness exercise for Radio Amateurs. Field Day is a 24 hour exercise designed to test the group’s ability to respond to emergency conditions by conducting a sustained operation in the field and under non-commercial power.
Winter Field Day started in 2007 by a non-ARRL group with the purpose of preparing for and practicing Emergency Communications across North America and beyond.Similar to Summer Field Day, offering additional challenges of wintertime operations, but with a more streamlined scoring system. In 2019, K5RWK operated as an outdoors station, placing 7th Nationally, and 1st in our Section.
Officially both Field Day and Winter Field Day are Emergency Communications Exercises, with points awarded for various types of operational proficiency in adverse conditions. We witnessed how important Amateur Radio operations were during the 2019 tornadoes in Richardson. While these events are unusual, we know they will occur again, and being prepared at a moment’s notice for these and other disasters can be invaluable. That’s why setup is limited to 12 hours total, and only during the previous 24 hours. If you are interested in honing your emergency preparedness skills, in adverse, unfamiliar conditions, you will find these events a rewarding challenge.
And unofficially, it’s a great opportunity for some good ole amateur radio camaraderie, showing off your gear, learning, and an excuse to help your RWK to earn bragging rights.
You can read more about ARRL Field Day here and Winter Field Day (not affiliated with ARRL) here.
Field Day Photo Gallery
Photos from some of our previous Field Day & Winter Field Day exercises. Click on a picture for more or click the slide show link below.
Field day galleries
We also have a full selection of RWK pictures from Field Day and Winter Field Day from previous years that are available here.
Field Day Posts
General Meeting – August 2024 – Update on the PACSAT Project
August 5, 2024
Our August RWK Meeting will be an update on the PACSAT Project, an upcoming amateur radio payload soon to be in orbit. Our own Bill Reed NX5R has been involved with AMSAT for several years and is the Design Team Leader for this unique satellite project. He will explain how this differs from the usual LEO satellites that are currently in orbit and show a demo of the current PACSAT ...Read Full Post...General Meeting – July 2024 – Katherine’s Radio Adventures
July 7, 2024Please join RWK on Monday July 8th for our General Meeting. Our July RWK Meeting will be on “Katherine’s Radio Adventures”. Our own (and newly-elected President of the Texas A&M Radio Club W5AC) Katherine KT5KMF has been on some interesting school-related radio adventures in the last couple of years. She will be on hand to tell us about them (and show lots of pictures), but I don’t think she’s gotten ...Read Full Post...RWK Field Day 2024
June 10, 2024
By Chip Coker KD4C Update: Thanks to all that participated in RWK Field Day at the Richardson EOC today! We had 69 Members and Guests! I guess everyone wanted to be in the A/C… Don’t forget, Field Day has a over 12 hours left and you can operate your home station (probably you will operate “1D NTX”) and submit your log. If you tag “Richardson Wireless Klub” on your submission, your ...Read Full Post...General Meeting – June 2024 – RWK Field Day Past & Present
June 4, 2024Please join RWK on Monday June 10th for our General Meeting. Our June RWK Meeting will be on “RWK Field Day – Past and Present”. We’ll share some of the history of RWK’s past history with Field Day going back to the 1970s, what Field Day was back then and how it has evolved over time, and we’ll go over the current rules and what RWK will be doing this year. ...Read Full Post...RWK Winter Field Day 2024 – Cancelled
January 17, 2024
By Chip Coker KD4C *** RWK POTA Winter Field Day is Cancelled *** We had planned on a POTA-style Winter Field Day 2024 at our POTA Park-of-choice – Spring Creek Forest Preserve (in Garland – about 6 miles east of Richardson City Hall), but the weather forecast has not turned in our favor. Initially the forecast was for high 50s on Saturday (similar to last year), but the latest forecast is for ...Read Full Post...
RWK Field Day History
RWK has been participating in Field Day since the late 1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Field Day was much more of a contest, RWK often scored in the Top 10 of the entered class and was #1 several years.
Tim Bratton K5RA has researched the RWK’s Field Day results and has an excellent summary and results over the years. You can read his piece here.
We came across a brief movie from Field Day in the late 60s showing a tower setup in a field in Richardson.
RWK Field Day Results
| Year | Category | Result |
| 1959 | 4A | 59 |
| 1969 | 2A | 6 |
| 1970 | 2A | 3 |
| 1971 | 2A | 1(!) |
| 1972 | 2A | 3 |
| 1973 | 3A | 2 |
| 1974 | 1A | 3 |
| 1975 | 2A | 2 |
| 1976 | 3A | 1 |
| 1977 | 3A | 2 |
| 1978 | 3A | 2 |
| 1979 | 3A | 2 |
| 1982 | 2A | 1 |
| 1983 | 2A | 4 |
| 1984 | 1A | 13 |
| 1985 | 2A | 9 |