Spring 2022 VHF UHF Field Day

Contest Introduction

The VHF-UHF Field Days provide VHF-UHF operators with the opportunity to “head for the hills” and see how far and how many they can work.

The Field Days have separate sections for single and multiple operator stations. The duration of the Field Day is 24 hours, but there are also 8-hour sections for operators who may not be able to camp overnight. Most club stations prefer to operate for the full 24 hours.

The Field Days also generate plenty of activity from home stations, so there is also a separate Home Station section.

All contacts must be simplex: contacts through repeaters or satellites are not allowed. There is plenty of FM activity, but one feature of Field Days is a high level of SSB activity.

It is possible to do very well with only modest antennas if you pick a good hilltop. Another option, if your station is easily transportable, is to operate from more than one location during the contest period.

Aim Of The Contest

The overriding aim is to get away for the weekend and have fun! But next after that, the aims are:
to encourage more activity on VHF and microwave bands;
to encourage people to work greater distances than usual by operating portable, and
to provide opportunities for people to activate or work into new grid squares.

Contest History

The first VHF-UHF Field Day was run as a trial in January 1989. It was quite well received so it has continued since then. In 1998, there was a trial Spring Field Day which also proved a success. Support for the Field Days continued to increase, and a third event – the Winter VHF-UHF Field Day – was introduced in 2008.

In 2014, the WIA board decided that the contest should be run with two parallel sets of rules and scoring systems. John Martin VK3KM departed as Contest Manager after the Winter 2014 event.

Since the Winter 2019 event, the Field Days have used a single set of Rules, using distance-based scoring, as per the previous Division 2 Rules. This resulted from the clear preference of participation and log entries moving to Division 2 over Division 1 across the prior year.