Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | 2008 Freeze Your B__

Two members of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team operated in the 2008 Freeze Your B___ Off, a winter-time field day event sponsored by the Arizona ScQRPions. Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, and John McCutcheon, N8XWO, operated the event from a tent at QTH WD8RIF near Athens, Ohio. Drew McDaniel, W8MHV, had planned to participate but on the day of the event wasn't feeling well. He loaned Eric his Elecraft four-band K1 to try.

Eric and John erected the now-traditional orange tent and Eric's W6MMA vertical antenna in the side yard of the Eric's QTH and operations began about 1:30pm.

John is not a CW op, so only Eric made QSOs and he started on 20m with the K1 set at 5 watts. Eric found the K1 receiver to be excellent, the three crystal filters to be very nice, and tuning-feel to be marvelous. For some reason, Eric was unable to make any QSOs with the K1. Changing to Eric's Ten-Tec Argonaut 509 netted NQ7RP, the Arizona sQRPions 10,000 bonus-point station, on the first call at 2-1/2 watts. One QSO was made on 40m (MI), and two additional QSOs were made on 20m (AL and NM). It should be noted that N4BP's 1w signal out of Florida boomed in on 20m for most of the period spent on that band but, as has been experienced in prior events, Bob couldn't hear Eric.

The temperature in the tent was a balmy sun-heated 64 degrees for the first QSO but dropped to 54 degrees for the last QSO as the sun neared the horizon. KK6MC in New Mexico reported the lowest temperature of all the stations Eric worked: 22 degrees.