LOCAL FIELD DAY 2020 INFORMATION

We will keep you updated about any local ARRL 2020 Field Day activities as soon as we know about them.

Field Day 2020 — A Time to Adapt

03/27/2020 (from the ARRL website)

Many individuals and groups organizing events for Field Day 2020 have been contacting ARRL for guidance on how to adapt their planned activities in this unprecedented time of social distancing and uncertainty.

Due to the unique situation presented this year, this can be an opportunity for you, your club, and/or group to try something new, ARRL Contest Manager Paul Bourque, N1SFE, said. Field Day isn’t about doing things the same way year after year. Use this year to develop and employ a new approach that is in line with the current circumstances.

Social distancing and state and local requirements very likely will impact just how — and even whether — you are able to participate in Field Day this year. ARRL continues monitoring the coronavirus situation, paying close attention to information and guidance offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If social distancing means that Class A with a 30-member team set up in a city park won’t work this year, then it’s time for a Plan B. Part of the Field Day concept has always been adapting your operation to the situation at hand. At its heart, Field Day is an emergency communication demonstration. Field Day rules are flexible enough to allow individuals and groups to adjust their participation and strategies in a way that still addresses their needs while being fun.

Some possibilities:
  • Encourage club members to operate from their home stations on emergency power (Class E).

  • Use the club’s repeater as a means for individual participants to keep in touch during the event.

  • Family members interested in operating Field Day and unable to participate as part of a larger group may want to consider setting up a portable station in the backyard with a temporary antenna.

One big impact this year will be a decline in public visibility and any interaction with the visitors. Prudence may dictate dispensing with the ham radio PR table to attract passersby, should you set up in a more public location. It’s okay not to score all the bonus points you may have attempted in the past. Local and served agency officials may be unwilling to visit, which is understandable under the circumstances. Do be sure to reach out to them as part of your preparations and remind them that you look forward to continuing your working relationship with them in the future.

The impact will differ from place to place, so ARRL recommends that all amateur radio clubs participating in Field Day stay in regular contact with local or state public health officials for their advice and guidance on hosting Field Day activities.

Demonstrating an understanding of the health crisis we all face and your willingness to adapt will show that you and your club or group are good working partners with local or served agencies.

With any emergency preparedness exercise, it’s not about adapting the situation to your operation, it’s about adapting your operation to the situation that presents itself, Bourque said. Try something different. Learn something new about how you prepare. It may be a challenge, and you may have to ask yourself if you’re up to the challenge.

We hope to hear you on the air over the June 27 – 28 weekend. — Thanks to Paul Bourque, N1SFE, and Dan Henderson, N1ND

Welcome One and All to our Website!

The goal of this website is to provide you with a little information about the Sun Country Amateur Radio Society, our repeaters, some of the activities associated with our group and a bunch of general ham radio information.

We are located in North Central Florida, Marion County, in the town of Anthony, just north of Ocala, FL. We are about 90 NNW of Orlando, about 75 miles from the east or the west coast of Florida and about 35 miles south of Gainesville. MAP

KA4WJA/R, 146.970, Voted "Best (non-Linked) Repeater" in "4" Call Area. Click Here to Read about more about it Needless to say, we are very proud of this recognition!

Our group is more of a social group rather than a official structured club. We get together every 2 weeks and meet at one of the local restaurants in town for some food, fun and relaxation. We start at 7:00PM and continue on until we are ready to call it quits for the evening. Our next meeting is at Dinner Has Been Cancelled on Tuesday - April 21 2020 @ 7:00PM.

If you would like to learn more about ham radio, if you think you have some interest in ham radio but would like to learn more or if you are a local ham operator looking for a great group of people to socialize with, we encourage you to come and join us. Everyone is welcome!!

IN THE NEWS!

Changed ISP: We changed our Internet Service Provider from CenturyLink to Spectrum (Brighthouse). Spectrum offers about the same services but with CenturyLink but we had issues where the website couldn't be seen from the outside Internet. Hopefully things will remain stable with the new service provider.

Email Server: Due to some issues caused by the take-over of Brighthouse by Spectrum, we are no longer able to host a mail server on our system. We are fine with the web server because we have a way to fix that using a small program. The likelihood of Spectrum changing their policies is very slim so we are no longer pursuing remedies to get the mail server running again. The status of the email server has not changed with the new ISP.

Website: Even though the website has been completed, we are constantly working to make this website more informative.. The latest changes have been toward automating as many of the functions of the website as possible. We try to do as much of the development as we can during the late night hours to try and keep any interruption of service to a minimum. We always welcome any new items to post on the website.

Website Development: It took a lot of time to get everything moved over from the old website and then move the server to the new network without any interruption of service. There will be some things that I will add from the time to time. If you can't find something you were looking for, let me know and I will try to restore it back as it was. Otherwise we'll try to keep the information here as up to date as we can.

Updated: December 18th, 2017, 11:01PM

Some of the Local Area Repeaters

Here are of few of the repeaters in the area. This is not a complete list but these are some of the popular ones. If you have a repeater in the area and would like to be listed, send us an email with the necessary information and we'll add it as soon as we can.

Our Repeaters (In order by Frequency)
Frequency Offset Tone Call Sign Location
146.970 MHz -600 kHz No Tone KA4WJA Anthony, FL
147.165 MHz +600 kHz 123 N4STP Fort McCoy, FL
224.100 MHz -1.6 MHz No Tone N4TSV Anthony, FL
444.325 MHz +5 MHz No Tone KA2MBE Anthony, FL
444.375 MHz +5 MHz 123 N4STP Fort McCoy, FL

Other Ocala Area Repeaters (In order by Frequency)
Frequency Offset Tone Call Sign Location
145.170 MHz -600 kHz D-Star KG4NXO Ocala, FL
145.270 MHz -600 kHz 123 KQ4PP Ocala, FL
145.430 MHz -600 kHz 141.3 KD4GME Ocala, FL
146.610 MHz -600 kHz 123 K4GSO Ocala, FL
146.790 MHz -600 kHz D-Star K4GSO Ocala, FL
147.210 MHz +600 kHz 123 KI4MTN Ocala, FL

The Villages Repeaters (In order by Frequency)
Frequency Offset Tone Call Sign Location
146.925 MHz -600 kHz 123 W4OE Summerfield, FL
147.030 MHz +600 kHz 123 KJ4AN The Villages, FL
443.225 MHz +5 MHz 103.5 K4VRC The Villages, FL

Gainesville Repeaters (In order by Frequency)
Frequency Offset Tone Call Sign Location
146.820 MHz -600 kHz 123 K4GNV Gainesville, FL
146.865 MHz -600 kHz 123 K4GNV Gainesville, FL
146.985 MHz -600 kHz 123 K4GNV Gainesville, FL
224.160 MHz -1.6 MHz No Tone K4GNV Gainesville, FL
444.925 MHz +5 MHz No Tone K4GNV Gainesville, FL

University of Florida Repeaters (In order by Frequency)
Frequency Offset Tone Call Sign Location
146.910 MHz -600 kHz No Tone W4DFU Gainesville, FL
444.725 MHz +5 MHz No Tone W4DFU Gainesville, FL



On The Lighter Side