ARRL Field Day 2023: Past Hudson Division Site Participation

 

Back in 2020, we saw the full effect of what COVID did to ARRL Field Day site participation. The total number of participants shrank, but the number of actual "on air" participants increased greatly.

Everyone who organizes an ARRL Field Day operation and who submits logs back to the ARRL collects an attendance sheet and is how site participation is measured. Participants can be those who operate over the air or just come to help with setting up the event or socializing.  

In 2023, those who participated from home the past few years hopefully rejoin us out in the field in the true spirit of what makes field day a real field day.

A few years ago Hudson Valley Digital Network (HVDN) decided to take the publicly available ARRL Field Day data and continue running some analytics about the event, just like we do with global Digital Voice Repeaters.  If interested in past related articles, please use the our search function in upper right of page.

For 2023, the COVID impacts should be not great and site participation should rebound in a big way. 

Weather conditions in some parts of the United States may impact site participation this year, but most who organize ARRL Field Day sites know how to plan around the weather to pull off a great 24 hour preparedness event. Are you ready?

This will also be the first year that HVDN officially participates in ARRL Field Day using our N2HVD callsign. More details on where and what we are doing along with the UNDR Group is listed on its blog page along with details on the search and rescue inspired radio direction finding challenge.

Local ARRL Field Day Participation

Here in what is known as the ARRL Hudson Division and overall site participation has seen an increase in site participation compared to the event wide average.  This is a great trend to see considering that overall attendance across the event has declined over the past 13 years.

Here is a view comparing average site attendance by each of the three sections within Hudson Division. 

Based on the data below, the Northern New Jersey Section with few exceptions has had the smallest average site participation whereas the Eastern New York Section has continued to show higher turnout from those looking to participate in ARRL Field Day.   

Within New York City/Long Island has shown some issues and could be due to people moving out of the area, such as a number of Hudson Valley Digital Network (HVDN) members who decided to move north for better access to public spaces or lower cost of living.

Accept This Challenge Now!

It does not matter if you stay at home and operate as a 1D or 1E station,  plan to join a few friends as part of a small B or C class operation  or be part of a club operation within A class or at an emergency operations center as F class, the point is get out there and enjoy ARRL Field Day this year and keep our local division growing. 

The part two of this article will cover how did Hudson Division do this year in terms of site participation after the event. There may also be a part three later this year when we have full event details to compare against national averages.

Here is the official ARRL Field Day Station Locator map with public sites listed. Based on Hudson Division Sections, a listing of Class A participants is below as of the time of this article a few days before the 2023 event for those organizing "A" class field day sites. The full dataset used to create the above charts is available here.

New York City & Long Island

1. K2GSG - Garden School Amateur Radio Club
2. NW2C - NorthEast Wireless Radio Club
3. KC2RC - Kings County Radio Club
4. K2VN - Nassau Amateur Radio Club
5. W2VL - Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club
6. W2GSB - Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club
7. W2LRC - Larkfield Amateur Radio Club
8. W2DQ - Suffolk County Radio Club
9. W2RC - Radio Central Amateur Radio Club & Order of Boiled Owls
10. W2AMC - Peconic Amateur Radio Club
11. K2EC - Bonac Amateur Radio Club

Eastern New York

1. N2SF - Westchester Emergency Communications Association
2. W2NYW - Peekskill Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association
3. K2PUT - Putnam Emergency Amateur Radio League
4. W2HO - Orange County Amateur Radio Club
5. K2QS - The QSY Society
6. N2HVD - HVDN & UNDR Group - Taconic - Hereford MUA
7. N2LL - Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club - Ferncliff Forest
8. K2OMD - Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club  - Norrie Park (Not listed on map)
9. W2EGB - East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association
10. K2CT/NY2U - Albany Amateur Radio Association & Troy Amateur Radio Association
11. W2IR/K2AE - Broughton Memorial Field Day Group
12. K2DLL - Saratoga County Amateur Radio Association
13. W2F - Eastern Fulmont/Mohawk Valley
14. WA2ZWM - Schoharie County Amateur Radio Association
15. W2WCR - Warren County Radio Club

Northern New Jersey

1. W2NPT - Fairlawn Amateur Radio Club
2. N2FLO - Franklin Lakes Office of Emergency Management
3. W2EF - West Essex Amateur Radio Club
4. W2YD - Morris Radio Club/Hanover Township Office of Emergency Management
5. WS2R - Splitrock Amateur Radio Association
6. W2LV - Sussex County Amateur Radio Club
7. N2XJ - New Providence Amateur Radio Club
8. K2ZV - Carteret Volunteers Amateur Radio Club
9. NJ2SP - South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club
10. W2CRA - Cherryville Repeater Association