07/06/2005 | W5ZDN The Heart O Texas Amateur Radio Club (HOTARC) located in Waco, TX enjoyed sunny, hot weather for FD 2005. (Compared to the flooding rains of last year's event--see FD 2004 soapbox for W5ZDN--we were quite happy to endure the heat.)

HOTARC enjoys the privilege of setting up our "2A NTX" station in Hewitt Park each year, where we have a large covered pavilion to shield us from the sun and rain, and paved parking lot in which to set up our emergency communication equipment. The pavilion cover makes a terrific ground plane for our homemade 40m vertical (see photos). This year, in addition to our Club trailer, we also were blessed with the local chapter Salvation Army emergency communications RV. This provided us with an opportunity to give that vehicle a good workout, as well as enjoy its air conditioning! :-)

Everybody in the Club (or so it seemed) wanted to erect an antenna, so we had a veritable antenna farm at Hewitt park this year--80m dipole, 10-15-20m tribanders, 40m vertical, 10m vertical, 6-m beams, VHF and UHF verticals and beams, not to mention rubber ducks, GPS, and miniature ATV antennas!

We enjoyed excellent food, a great public information display (we all were singing the hamband.com song by the end of the weekend! Come and Join Us on the Airwaves :-), and several VIP visitors to our site. The Waco Mayor even came back out at 11:30 pm to witness the ISS overhead pass (packet contact).

Our score wasnt quite as high this year, but our spirits and antennas definitely were! Enjoy the photos! -- AC5CV