Big Bend Area, TEXAS – Members of the Big Bend Amateur Radio Club didn’t break their own personal best when it came to the club’s 2016 Field Day score but they did turn in a respectable score…and had a lot of fun doing it.
This year’s score of 9,674 was almost a thousand points less than last year when the club finished in seventh place in Class 2A.
The big difference was the lousy conditions on 6, 10 and 15 meters. This year we had zero points on 6. The CW ops had about the same on 15 meters and zero on 10. They ended up with 1369 Qs. The SSB Station had almost exactly the same score as last year with 1309. The GOTA station had 331 Qs last year but just 42 this year.
All together, CW was down about 300 QSOs. The SSB station was able to make up for the lack of 6 meter Q’s but the result was about the same.
This year, Robin Ritche, KK5ROB, earned 40 GOTA Bonus Points but that was it. Last year we had 320 GOTA Bonus Points.
When it came to other Bonus Points they were the same with 1,400. There were two new categories, social media and a safety officer for which we got the points, but because the GOTA bonus was down the result was the same.
As usual, we had great food by Bob, WA5ROE, and Ike Roberts. 
Operators on the CW station included Dave, N5DO; Mike, W5POK; and visiting from Midland was Robert, W5AJ. On SSB we had Bill, KE5OG; Chuck, KA5PVB; Steve Cowell, KI5YG; Steve Ritchie, W5JSR; and Allen Moore, N5NYM.
Participating on the GOTA station, in addition to KK5ROB, were N5NYM on CW, and then Justin Coggins, Bryan Ritchie, Adrian Billings and Zane Billings.