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#WFD

A Member's Letter to the WFD Association

Travis Hambach, WFD Association Board Member's Open Letter

Updated: January 13, 2025

The following article was submitted by W0MOC club member, Travis Hamach (W0DTM), to the WFD Association. Travis has also recently joined the board of the WFD Association.

I found myself laid up for about a week after a minor surgery in 2019 and ended up watching many hours of YouTube videos about Ham radio. I’d always wondered about it, and this helped me decide to get my license so I took my Technician test at the SLSRC Winterfest in 2020. My wife and daughters came along, and we all did a kit build together and had a great time. Over the following year, I found my local repeaters and was able to connect with a few hams in the area, though none in my local community. With the onset of Covid and the closures and restrictions that resulted, I heard that there was a group of hams that was struggling to figure out how to set up their WFD site in a POTA entity for the weekend. Missouri State Parks and the Missouri Department of Conservation had restrictions on how many people could be in your group, social distancing, etc. that would make their event very difficult to make successful. Living on some acreage, I offered up my land if they were interested. A couple of guys came out and had a look and decided it would be a good place to set up.

When WFD 2021 came up, the guys of the Missouri Outdoor Club (W0MOC) showed up on Friday afternoon. I was impressed with their enthusiasm, and all this HF equipment and camping gear that they had brought. I was still a technician at the time with just a few Baofengs and a 2m ground plane that I had built out of aluminum welding rod. These guys had all sorts of HF equipment, filter sets neatly configured onto plywood bases, lots of stuff that I couldn’t identify, and wires everywhere. I understood little of it.

Out comes the hot tent for cooking and socializing. Then the hot tent for operating. Then a few personal tents for sleeping in. Some of them just slept in their cars. It wasn’t freezing out, but it was in the 30s-40s and rainy all weekend. They talked about how the previous year’s WFD was snowy and cold and how much they loved it. I saw how dedicated they were, even in these conditions, and it had a big impact on me. There must be something to this hobby that I’ve not yet been a part of.

Putting up antennas was quite a chore. We set up a DX Commander and a multi-band half-wave, which weren’t too much, but then the 160m loop planning started. We were able to connect it to the corner of a barn, an old electric fence pole that stuck up off another shed, and two fiberglass masts that we set up out in the pasture. A lot more than I had ever seen before having only ever been on VHF/UHF. The sloppy ground and rain made it miserable but also made for a lot of good-natured ribbing and camaraderie. A big pot of chili in the mess tent and a lot of good story telling rounded out the wet evening.

Saturday afternoon came and it was time to start the event. They had their laptops networked for logging with N3FJP and two stations ready to go. A couple of guys sat me at a station and helped me make my first ever HF contact. I could tell they were excited to get to introduce a new ham to this event that they enjoyed so much and spent so much time and effort in preparing for. I worked quite a few SSB stations that weekend, including the only DX contact the club made. It rained cold all weekend and it was a sloppy mess, but the wood stoves in the tents saved the day. We realized too late that we had set up the operating tent in a low spot that gathered a lot of runoff, but this had made for fond memories and stories to tell on Winter Field Days, POTA activations, and other events since.

I hope that my early amateur radio experience is not rare. I suspect many others have also had similar experiences with clubs or groups of hams who show as much interest in teaching you what they know as I have. I encourage all in the ham community to think about how we can use Winter Field Day as an opportunity to invite someone new to the weekend, and do what you can to share your knowledge and love of the hobby so that the future of amateur radio stays bright!

I am excited to be on the WFDA Board now and looking forward to growing and improving this event!

Travis Hambach, W0DTM

W0MOC thanks Travis for his leadership and willingness to give back to an organization that was instrumental in the formation of this club.

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