Winter Field Day Homepage

Monday, February 16, 2026

Why do we exclude 60m and the WARC bands?

We get a variation of this one periodically:

"If you're not a contest, why do you not allow operation on the WARC bands?"

Because "being a contest" isn't the underlying reason events don't operate on those bands. Those bands are smaller than the "classic" bands and thus much more easily overrun during a large operating event. Most contests, QSO parties, sprints, whatever they're called, encourage people to make a lot of contacts in a short period of time. The informal agreement we've all made as stewards of the bands is to avoid WARC+60 for those events. 

It doesn't matter if Winter Field Day is a contest or not. We're not going to include those bands. People who don't want to do WFD should have a place to go to avoid the chaos.

"But if you're a real emergency preparedness exercise, shouldn't you allow all bands?" 

It's useful to have limitations in an exercise. Even if you ignore the very good reason I stated above, working around constraints makes better operators. 

Finally, I want to acknowledge an underlying reason why some people ask us this question. They are preoccupied with "proving" Winter Field Day is actually a contest, and they somehow think the entire WFDA board was born yesterday. We see what you're doing, and it's not changing anyone's mind.

73
Mike, KY4LV
Winter Field Day Association