In an effort to encourage more youngsters and their families to get involved in Amateur Radio, the kids at Ham Radio (dot) World will mount an all-kids ARRL Field Day special event operation — K1D — over the June 25-26 weekend. Youngsters will set up, operate, and take down the station, which will be located in Deland, Florida. The K1D operators plan to operate on HF and Amateur Radio satellites. K1D will team with the K4G “Get on the Air” (GOTA) station at the same site, and Tom Medlin, W5KUB, of Amateur Radio Roundtable plans to webcast the event on Saturday, 2000 until 2200 U TC, live, followed by video from various Field Day sites around the US from 2200 until 2400 UTC or later.

Joining the youngsters at K1D will be AMSAT Vice President-Operations Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, who will be a kid-for-a-day to help get the young ops on the linear satellites. The youngsters built a solar power system from scratch to power K1D, with thanks to Kyocera Solar and West Mountain Radio for donating components. A Genasun MPPT Charge Controller will manage battery charging, and Radiowavz.com is providing a Sentinel Expedition Hex Beam for K1D.

The youngsters built a W7FG TrueLadderLine antenna among other antennas and are building additional antennas to use for Field Day. Youngsters as young as 7-year-old Grace, KM4TXT, will be on the air from K1D. For helping to encourage youth in Amateur Radio, stations working K1D and/or K4G during ARRL Field Day 2016 will be eligible for a commemorative QSL card.

Stations who work K1D and/or K4G during the 2016 ARRL Field Day will be eligible for a special K1D/K4G Commemorative QSL card.

Ham Radio.World is run by Zechariah, WX4TVJ; Faith Hannah, AE4FH; Hope, KM4MPF; and Grace, KM4TXT, who just got her license in May. Their parents are James, WX4TV, and Michelle Lea. James Lea has been a radio amateur since he was 13. The older three Lea children got their ham licenses early last year.

Faith Hannah, 10, and Zechariah, 12, were presenters at the Hamvention® 2016 Youth Forum. They spoke on “Experiences in Antenna Selection, Construction, and Use for VHF Applications.”