July 2026

Wow, what a weekend! Field Day 2026 at Shawnee Mission Park is officially in the books, and I want to extend a massive, heartfelt thank you to every single person who came out to make it happen. An event of this scale doesn't just happen on its own; it takes a dedicated community, and the Johnson County Radio Amateurs showed up in force.

A special shout-out goes to our setup and breakdown teams. Getting the stations, towers, and tents up safely—and then packing them all away neatly when we are exhausted on Sunday—is the hardest physical work of the weekend. Your grit and muscles are what keep this club running.

Mother Nature decided to keep us on our toes, of course. That brief shower just before 1:00 PM on Saturday certainly got the adrenaline pumping right as we were preparing to launch into the fray! Thankfully, we weathered the quick drop of rain and pushed right through.

As with any real-world deployment, we had our share of unexpected technical hurdles. We learned the hard way that our new mast sections didn't quite want to mate together properly, requiring some field engineering. We also spent some time chasing down a stubborn interference problem plaguing our digital station. But diagnosing and overcoming these issues under pressure is exactly what Field Day is all about—it’s training for when the chips are down.

The absolute highlight of the weekend, however, was the incredible performance of our new CW antenna. It performed beautifully and kept the CW ops flying. A huge thank you to everyone who spent time over the last year designing, testing, and building that antenna. Your hard work throughout the seasons completely paid off on the air!

Speaking of performance, our operators stayed dedicated right up until the final whistle. Here is a look at the preliminary contact breakdown by station:

Field Day 2026 Contact Statistics

Station / Mode Total Contacts

Phone (SSB) 1,925

CW 428

Digital 298

Total QSO Points 3,377

73, 

Bill KA2FNK, President