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STARS Field Day 2008
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Open to the Public! Hams, Non-Hams, Friends, and Family are all welcome.
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The Suburban Technical Amateur Repeater System (STARS) W9SRC Field Day for 2008 will be held again at
Messenger Woods Nature Preserve in Lockport, IL in Will County. The preserve is bounded by
IL 7 to the North, Parker Road to the East, West Bruce Road / 175th Street to the South
and Cedar Road to the West. The enterance to the preserve is on West Bruce Road.
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Our field day site is open to the general public from 8:00 AM until 8:00 PM on Saturday June 28th and again
from 8:00 AM until Noon or so on Sunday. All hams, non-hams, friends, and family are welcome.
Field day setup begins early Saturday morning around 8:00 AM. Field day activities on the air run officially
from 1:00 PM on Saturday, June 28th until 1:00 PM Sunday, June 29th. Field Day activities are measured in fun
per hour. Bring something to eat and drink, as well as something to share.
Our talk-in frequency is 146.640 MHz R-600 with a PL tone of 107.2 Hz
Hre are some useful directions:
Take I80 West to I355 North to US 6 East, then watch for Cedar Road at the first traffic signal. Turn North onto Cedar Road.
Once you are on Cedar Road, watch for a Brown and White info sign saying "Messenger Woods". You will be on an S-Curve.
The sign will direct you to turn right onto a fork off of Cedar Road that will take you onto West Bruce Road. Watch fork
the enterance to Messenger Woods.
The enterance to Messanger Woods Nature Preserver is located at 41.570408° latitude and -87.953237° Longitude.
View Larger Map
The STARS Field Day site itself in Messenger Woods is located at 41.575889° Latitude and -87.952497° Longitude.
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"Messenger Woods, in rural Lockport, is one of Will County’s oldest forest preserve sites — and one of its most unusual.
Purchased in a series of tracts in 1930, 1942, 1944, and 1946, the preserve today totals 946 acres. Here visitors can
see and enjoy one of the few remaining forests in northeastern Illinois that has not been altered by grazing, cutting
or development."
"Messenger Woods is located on Bruce Road, north of Route 6 (Southwest Highway) and east of Cedar Road, in rural Lockport.
Open November-March, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; April-October, 8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. daily."
"Considered a high-quality, old-grove forest, Messenger Woods has oak uplands and rich maple-basswood-ash-elm bottomlands
on a rolling glacial hill terrain. Spring Creek, which runs through the preserve, has cut several steep-sided ravines.
Due to the quality of this site, 58 acres in the northwest corner of the preserve were dedicated an Illinois Nature Preserve in 1994."
"In addition, Messenger Woods is known throughout the region for its abundance of spring wildflowers that carpet the forest
floor (Update: See Letters from Photographers, Summer 2000, about the decline in recent years). Watch the flocks of nature
photographers perch over their cameras to capture the blue-eyed Mary, red trillium, white trillium grandiflora, and hepatica
in bloom. But the biggest draw are Virginia bluebells, for more appear at Messenger Woods over a few fleeting weeks in May
than anywhere else in Will County."
"The rare but recovering Cooper’s hawk has consistently nested in the south portion of the preserve, while the state-endangered
red-shouldered hawk nests annually on private land just north of the boundary."
"Visitors to Messenger Woods can hike or ski along two miles of looped trails and enjoy three picnic shelters and an open playfield.
The District also sponsors free nature walks in the woods."
"Note: No bicycles are allowed on the trails. Dogs are permitted only on South Trail and in picnic areas and must be on a leash."
"For additional information call the Forest Preserve District of Will County’s public information office at (815) 727-8700."
Bruce Hodgdon, public information naturalist, Forest Preserve District of Will County
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You can find the STARS Field Day site on the
ARRL Field Day 2008 Site Search Tool. Search on on W9SRC.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources offers the following information on
Messenger Woods Nature Preserve.
Neil Ormos (N9NL) has a very comprehensive list of
field day sites in case you can't make it to the STARS field day site, consider visiting another field days site. If you are stuck
at home or on the road at least check-in to your favorite field day sites to give them points.
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