Four Lakes Amateur Radio Club W9JZ will host ARRL Field Day 2026 June 28/29 at Schumacher Farm County Park in Waunakee, WI.
With increasingly severe weather events and other disasters featured prominently in the news, it is comforting to know that groups and agencies all over Dane County continue to practice and improve their responses to these emergencies. Our local Amateur Radio community, and around the country actively prepares as well.
Each year since 1933 Amateur Radio operators have set aside a weekend at the end of June to practice emergency responsiveness and to showcase the science and skill of Amateur Radio. This year the Four Lakes Amateur Radio Club (FLARC), with members all over Dane and nearby Counties, will participate with hams all over North America in the Amateur Radio Field Day exercise June 28-29 2026. We will set up at Schumacher Farm County Park in Waunakee starting at 8:00am Saturday morning with full operations beginning at 1:00 pm on Saturday afternoon and then operating for 24 hours from 1:00 pm Saturday to 1:00 pm Sunday on only emergency power. With teardown Sunday from 1:00pm to about 3:00pm.
For 24 hours we will turn a park building into a communications hub and we will communicate with stations all over North America and around the globe. It helps us hone our craft and is an opportunity to make the public aware of this capability. This is Ham Radio’s "open house."
For more than 100 years, Amateur Radio — also called "ham" radio — has allowed people from all walks of life to experiment with electronics and communications techniques, as well as provide a free public service to their communities during a disaster or emergency, all without needing a cell phone or the Internet. Field Day demonstrates ham radio’s ability to work reliably under any conditions from almost any location and create an independent communications network. More than 35,000 people from thousands of locations participated in past years in Field Day activities.
It’s easy for anyone to pick up a computer or smartphone, connect to the Internet and communicate, with no knowledge of how the devices function or connect to each other. But if there’s an interruption of service or you’re out of range of a cell tower, you may have no way to communicate. Ham radio functions completely independent of the Internet or cell phone infrastructure, and can be set up almost anywhere in minutes. That’s the beauty of Amateur Radio during a communications outage.
Hams can literally throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, connect it to a battery-powered transmitter, and communicate halfway around the world. In today’s electronic do-it-yourself (DIY) environment, ham radio remains one of the best ways for people to learn about electronics, physics, meteorology, and numerous other scientific disciplines. In addition, amateur radio is a huge asset to any community during disasters or emergencies if the standard communication infrastructure goes down.
In 2025 over 50 people stopped by, operated or asked questions during the event. We hosted a group dinner at the site on Saturday at 5:00pm.
For more information contact our Public Information Officer: W9GZO@arrl.net
Some of the activities this year will include:
- 4 stations on 10-80 Meters SSB & CW to contact other field day sites and hams around the world
- VHF/6meter FT-8 Station Digital & Voice
- Get On The Air [GOTA] station for visitors to experience Amateur Radio
- Parks on the Air [POTA] Setup by Jeff/KE9CQP
- Information Tent
- Saturday Dinner @5:00pm for all