This page describes some of our On-the-Air activities.
Dial gets together at least twice a year to operate. The largest operating event is the ARRL's Field Day which occurs during the last full weekend of June each year. Dial also participates as a group in the Ohio QSO Party on the last Saturday in August. In 2015 we celebrated 'International Pi-Day' on 3/14/15. In 2016, we celebrated our 75th anniversary of being an ARRL Affiliated Club by operating the Special Event Station W8D as a group one Saturday. Club members also participate in operating events on an individual basis, often with a bit of competition between the Club members. The information below tells you a bit about Field Day and the Ohio QSO Party. There are links to the event's sponsors if you desire to know more. There are links to info about Pi-Day and the W8D Special Event Station.
ARRL Field Day
On every last full weekend in June, more than 40,000 hams throughout North America set up temporary transmitting stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio's science, skill and service to our communities and our nation. It combines public service, emergency preparedness, community outreach, and technical skills all in a single event. Field Day has beenan annual event since 1933, and remains the most popular event in ham radio.
Dial Radio Club participates in the ARRL Field Day at Smith Park, Middletown, OH. We start setting up on Friday at noon and continue until about dinner time. We resume setup on Saturday morning after breakfast and continue until the Field Day contest starts at 2:00 pm. The goal of the contest is to work as many stations as possible on any and all amateur bands (excluding the 60, 30, 17, and 12-meter bands) and to learn to operate in abnormal situations in less than optimal conditions for 24 hours. The contest ends on Sunday at 2:00 pm. We start cleaning up our site on Sunday at about 1:00 pm.
Dial competed in Field Day 2024
We competed at Smith Park as Class 3A using call sign K8PI and GOTA call sign W8BLV.
See our 2024 Field Day Photos
Dial competed in Field Day 2023
We competed at Smith Park as Class 3A using call sign K8PI and GOTA call sign W8BLV.Dial was 2nd place in Ohio Class 3A. Our score was 7,500 points.
The following is a photo of one of our operating stations at Smith Park:
Dial competed in Field Day 2022
We competed at Smith Park as Class 3A using call sign K8PI and GOTA call sign W8BLV.Dial competed in Field Day 2021
We competed at Smith Park as Class 3A and from our homes primarly as Class D and Class E using our own individual call signs. We submitted our contacts as Class 3A plus the independent scores indicating our club name so our scores can be added to our club score utilizing the 2021 special rules.We earned 12,112 points this year.
Dial competed in Field Day 2020
Because of coronavirus concerns, we competed from our homes primarly as Class D and Class E using our own individual call signs. We submitted our contacts as independent scores, indicating our club name so our scores can be added to our club score utilizing the 2020 special rules.Dial competed in Class 3A for Field Day 2019
We earned 7112 points this year.Dial competed in Class 3A for Field Day 2018
We were 2nd place in Ohio and 18th place in the country for the 3A class.Dial competed in Class 3A for Field Day 2017
Dial finished second in Ohio, 3rd in the Great Lakes division (OH, MI and KY) and 24th in the country in our class 3A, 150 watts. This was a good showing for us. Just a few more contacts and we could have been #1 in Ohio.Dial finished 12th in the nation in Class 3A for Field Day 2016
In spite of less than spectacular band conditions, Dial finished #12 nationally and #2 in Ohio. The OH-KY-IN Club beat us by about 200 points. Setup went well, and computer/station/antenna problems were few. We had a good turn out, and a few dedicated operators put in long times in the chairs while 'running a frequency'. As usual the CW guys made a lot of contacts. The two SSB stations had good luck in spurts. Six meters was poor for almost the entire contest. Still we are very pleased with our results and look forward to winning Ohio in 2017!
Dial won Ohio in Class 3A for Field Day 2015
In spite of some pretty severe weather during setup on Friday (trees
were downed, roads were blocked and power was off to areas surrounding
our Field Day site at Smith Park, Middletown, OH), we were able to set
up our stations and operate for the full period.
We tried networking our logging computers using N1MM's program and
wireless networking. Bad traps in our 20-10 m beam caused lots of RF on
the feedline which interfered with the networking. We had to stop in
the middle of operating and string up wire antennas for 20 and 15
meters.
Several members of Dial put in very long times operating and having
good runs. Chris, W8OOO (now WM8MM) operated much of the period with
long runs on 40m SSB and racked up the contacts. The CW guys (K8CI,
KD8W, N8AA, N8HP, W8EH, W8LR) had a very good performance as usual.
Mark, WD8NKJ, stopped by around Sunday noon and had a nice run of about
30 contacts on 6 m SSB. We are quite pleased with our success (or luck)
and look forward to next year.
The Ohio QSO Party
The club participates in the Ohio QSO each year. The party runs from noon to midnight on the fourth Saturday of August. Club members operate two or three stations in the Multi-operator category from a member's home. See Details about OHQPDial competed in the 2024 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2024 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, N8YQF with two Elecraft K3 radios and five antennas: 80 meter Double Bazooka, 40 meter Endfedz, 15/20 meter Rotatable Dipole, 80-6 meter Carolina Windom, and 20 meter dipole. We had food, snacks, beverages and comradery of fellow Dial Radio Club hams.
See the 2024 Ohio QSO Party Photos
Dial competed in the 2023 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2023 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, KD8W with three HF radios and multiple antennas. We operated on the 80, 75, 40, 15, and 20 meter bands making a total of 515 contacts with 209 CW mode and 297 SSB mode. Our contest score was 118,690. We had a good turn out, good fellowship, good dinner, and good weather.Dial competed in the 2022 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2022 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, N8YFQ with two HF radios and multiple antennas. We operated on the 80, 75, 40, and 20 meter bands making a total of 377 contacts with about a 50/50 split between CW mode and SSB mode. We worked all the Ohio counties with a contest score of 70,625. The club purchased pizza for dinner. We had a good turn out, good fellowship, and good weather.Dial competed in the 2021 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2021 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, N8YFQ. During the contest we made a total of 354 contacts with about 55% CW mode and 45% SSB mode. We worked 44 states, several Canadian Privinces, and 2 DX contacts (Czech Republic on CW and England on SSB). The club purchased pizza for dinner.Dial competed in the 2020 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2020 Ohio QSO Party. Because of the coronavirus concerns, we competed from our individual homes instead of at one location. We submitted our contacts as independent scores indicating our club name so our scores can be added to our club score.Dial competed in the 2019 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2019 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, KD8W. Three stations with six antennas were operated using SSB and CW modes starting at noon.Dial competed in the 2018 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2018 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, N8YFQ. Three stations were operated with SSB and CW modes starting at noon. We took about an hour for pizza. We placed 2nd in the multi-operator category.Dial competed in the 2017 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2017 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave, KD8W. Three stations were operated with SSB voice and CW starting at noon until 23:50, except for taking about a 1.5 hour break for pizza. We did very well making 540 contacts with a score of 138138. We used a ladder for one of our temporary antennas shown below.Dial competed in the 2016 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2016 Ohio QSO Party at the home of Dave,
N8YFQ. There were 5 operators and 3 spent the entire period at
Dave's place. Two stations were operated, one strictly SSB voice
and the other a SSB voice/CW mix. We operated from noon until
about 23:30 pm, except during a thunderstorm with 60 mph winds that hit
around 15:00.
Dial competed in the 2015 Ohio QSO Party.
We competed in the 2015 Ohio QSO Party. We operated two stations with one station full time SSB voice and the other was SSB voice/CW operation. We placed 5th in Ohio and 1st in Butler County. See our 2015 OH QSO Party certificate.
Winter Field Day
Winter Field Day is a January competition. The competition runs for 24 hours starting at 1900 UTC (2:00 pm EST) on Saturday until 1859 UTC (1:59 EST) on Sunday.See Details about Winter Field Day
Dial competed in the 2024 Winter Field Day.
The Dial club participated in the 2024 Winter Field along with the Butler County Amateur Radio Association. The competition ran from 1900 UTC (2:00 pm EST) on Saturday January 27th 1859 UTC (1:59 EST) on Sunday January 28th. Club members operated one SSB station and one CW/SSB combo station at the Fairfield Township Buiding for 7 of the 24 competition period.Special Operating Events
We have celebrated two operating special events.
Dial being an ARRL Affiliated Club for 75 years - W8D Special Event Station
We believe that Dial was started much earlier, but May 9th, 1941 is the earliest written record that persists. It was the date of Dial becoming an ARRL Affiliated Club. So we claim May 9, 1941 as the Club's birthday. We obtained the Special Event call W8D for two weeks - including the weekends before and after our birthday. On Saturday May 7th, we had a group operation from the home of KD8W and made about 80 contacts in poor band conditions. Several members operated from their home at other times and we made about 250 total contacts. A special QSL card was designed to commemorate the event.
International Pi-Day activity
Dial's contest call is K8PI, so it was only natural to operate K8PI as a group activity on International Pi-Day (03/14/15). W8EH offered his home as a site and quite a few Club members came by to participate. We made a special QSL card that was requested by about 150 of the people that we contacted.
