The Pinecone Amateur Radio Club’s inaugural year was a memorable one. Carl, John, and I successfully put the club on the air and on the map through a number of different operating events. The highlight of the year was Field Day which, while fun, was secondary to the consistent, year-long theme of fun & fellowship. And if Carl is around, good food and drink. Not every club is lucky enough to count a sommelier from New Orleans among their ranks!
Field Day 2025 at Morrow Mountain State Park in North Carolina. Photo courtesy
John K4EB, 35mm. L-R: John K4EB, Carl W8WZ, Brantley K4CBW
We created our club with the goal of three friends making our Field Day operation the best that it could be, from both an engineering and social perspective. Once we decided to create a club, we determined the necessary steps to obtain a club callsign. A willing spouse gave us the four-person minimum needed to start a club through the ARRL VEC. Perhaps that spouse will get their license (one day!). We formulated our founding documents over email, signed them in my dining room, and sent them in. On January 22, 2025, we received the KR4AQZ callsign.
The first club operation took place January 25-26 during the Winter Field Day and ARRL 160m contest weekend. My pseudo-technical write up is available here. More important than the results was that the weekend served as a reconnaisance trip for John and I to evaluate Morrow Mountain State Park as a Field Day site. We had an hour-long phone call with Carl on the way back to Raleigh detailing our findings.
Winter Field Day cabin at Morrow Mountain State Park, appropriately named.
One of the things we learned from Winter Field Day was that our callsign needed to change. Kilo-Romeo-Four-Alpha-Quebec-Zulu was a mouthful on phone and just as burdensome on CW. We unsuccessfully applied for multiple 1x2 calls. We changed tactics, applied for, and on March 11 received N4BCJ. This callsign’s suffix includes the initial of each of our names.
Our next contest was the Virginia QSO Party over the March 15-16 weekend. We made a planned stop at Occoneechee State Park for a Parks on the Air activation and lunch. We then continued on to Twin Lakes State Park, arrived around 2pm, and promptly began setting up. Over the next 24 hours we made a number of QSOs on both CW and phone, sorted out some interstation interference issues, and continued thinking about station improvements we could make for Field Day. We were pleasantly surprised to place 2nd in the VAQP Expedition category!
2025 VIRGINIA QSO PARTY RESULTS
EXPEDITION CATEGORY
Call Stated Category Score Club
KA4CDN EXPEDITION 87,662 VWS
N4BCJ EXPEDITION 45,423 Pinecone Amateur Radio Club <-- Woohoo!
WB4E EXPEDITION 27,250 None Stated
WW3G EXPEDITION 20,510 None Stated
WA6MPR EXPEDITION 18,053 Alexandria RC
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The club’s next gathering was Hamvention. Carl and I attended Four Days in May. John flew in Thursday evening. On Friday evening we all drove to Whitewater Memorial State Park to activate a new park in a new state as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. After attending Hamvention, we ended the weekend with a POTA activation Sunday at Great Seal State Park before Carl returned to New Orleans by air and John and I to Raleigh by interstate.
Field Day was the club’s main event of the year. A detailed report can be found here. Per our club’s constitution, our annual meeting is held at noon before the start of Field Day:
An annual membership meeting will take place on the Saturday of the fourth full weekend in June at high noon Eastern Time.
This meeting was a moment of humorous decorum in the build up to the 2pm start time. Carl W8WZ meticulously recorded minutes with his fountain pen. It should be noted that recording the minutes constituted the majority of the duration of the meeting. Short and sweet, then lunch and operating at 2pm!
Pinecone Amateur Radio Club 2025 annual meeting minutes. Courtesy Carl W8WZ.
On November 26, Carl gave a presentation about his vertical beam experiments to the Pennine and Friends Amateur Radio Club, located in the UK, via Zoom. At the conclusion, he presented them with the first Pinecone Amateur Radio Club Certificate of Friendship. It’s an honor to be associated with such an active club working to advance the hobby.
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On December 4 we gathered over Zoom to begin planning for 2026. The year closed with this website going live. 2026 is going to be a blast. We hope to work you on the air!
73 DE K4CBW