The Draper Ham Radio Association is pleased to announce that the 2018 ARRL Amateur Radio Field Day will be held this year at the the Draper Equestrian Park (Andy Ballard Arena) this Saturday, 23 June 2018

We are scheduling several exciting activities throughout the day, including:

• THREE, yes 3, High Frequency Antennas for making contacts throughout the US (and hopefully beyond). If you have never gotten on HF you need to try this. The entire nation is transmitting, so we guarantee success.
• One of the High Frequency Antennas is NOT a traditional antenna. We are turning the grandstands into an antenna. Yep, you read that right, we will experiment turning strange things into antennas - this year we will be "loading" the metal grandstands to the east of the stadium as a High Frequency antenna.
• American Red Cross Safe and Well. Research indicates the NUMBER ONE request for emergency radio responders in a disaster is getting a message out to your loved one. We can do that! We are able to send a short message to the American Red Cross' Safe and Well online messaging system over HF radio using digital transmissions. Come by, enter a test message for yourself and let us transmit it to the American Red Cross.
• Digital Communications. Several of our neighboring cities and many local hospitals are using digital radio communications to stay in touch and coordinate during a disaster. We participate in this technology also. We have made arrangements with the Cottonwood Heights Amateur Radio Club (CHARC) to exchange digital messages, both in voice and text using the D-Star digital mode and using D-Rats software. Come see how this works and how clear digital voice modulation is.
• We will be running off-grid. Meaning, we will NOT be hooking up to electrical power. Everything (radios, computers, etc.) will be running off of solar power and batteries for the entire day. No generators, no extension cords, nothing. In the spirit of emergency communications, we are going to assume that the power systems have all failed.