Field Day

[Madball13]

Field day this weekend.

Everyone should check out a site this weekend and see what it's all about.

http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator

 

[76Too]

Does this mean i have to clean my room?

 

[cockpitbob]

Does this mean i have to clean my room?

No, you leave your room, sleep in a tent and operate off of batteries or a putt-putt generator . New hams should defenitely go find a club's FD site and ask to help. Most will be happy to show you the ropes and get you operating. The QSOs are easy "59 quickies" and they usually have 2 people at a station, one operating and one logging. Easy, and a tremendous learning experience.

 

[cockpitbob]

Field Day is this weekend 6/27/2015: 2:00pm Saturday to 2:00pm Sunday.

If you're at all interested in Ham Radio this is your best opportunity to learn and have fun. Field Day is something of a public event. Clubs get extra points for:
* Setting up in a public location.
* Getting non-hams or inactive hams on the air
(Most set up a special "Get On The Air" (GOTA) station just for this.
* Having educational materials available for people that stop by.
* Announce the event in local media.
* Give ham license tests.

Find a Field Day set-up near you here. No need to call in advance. Just show up. They'll be setting up Saturday a.m. before operating which starts at 2:00pm.

For you non-hams, Field Day is a once a year event were we operate for 24hrs out of buildings and off the power grid. The point is to test equipment and skills in a situation very loosely simulating some sort of disaster. To make it interesting they make it a contest to see how many contacts you can make in 24hrs. You'll get to see a wide range of equipment all in one place. Our club will be doing pretty much everything: voice (line-of-sight and around the world skip), Morse code, digital modes (yes, we plug the radio into a laptop's sound card and send texts thousands of miles through the air) and my job is to try to make a contact off of one of the ham satellites orbiting the earth every 90 minutes.

Hams love to show off their stuff and get non-hams to make contacts. If you show up you'll be warmly welcomed.

 

[dooshorama]

any stories from the attendees?

 

[n1oty]

I operated with a group running 2F out of Swansea Fire Station 2. Good time.

 

[tbk5]

I was at the CMARA Field Day in Spencer operating 6A. It was my first field day and had a great time. I learned allot. It got a little off script around 3am as the winds caused havoc. The antennas survived but 6 or 7 easy-ups were destroyed and a few tents collapsed but thankfully, no one was hurt. Some photos are posted at https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/gp/31735270@N02/3pr6D4/.

 

[cockpitbob]

We had a smaller than average turn-out from the club members but executed the same plan as usual which included 2 tents, 3 pop-ups, a 20' long carport and 3 masts. Spent way too much time setting up and tearing down and not enough operating. Saturday pm we packed away one of the 2 tents and all the rigs except those in the carport which had all 4 walls attached. It didn't keep out the rain in the winds we had so some gear got wet. They were opened and are drying out. Probably no damage.

This wasn't an easy weekend, but Field Day did its job. We tested our equipment and skills and found problems to fix and lessons to learn and now we are better prepared for a real off-grid, out doors situation.

 

[cockpitbob]

I was at the CMARA Field Day in Spencer operating 6A. It was my first field day and had a great time. I learned allot. It got a little off script around 3am as the winds caused havoc. The antennas survived but 6 or 7 easy-ups were destroyed and a few tents collapsed but thankfully, no one was hurt. Some photos are posted at https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/gp/31735270@N02/3pr6D4/.

6A? That's a big operation! You guys must have had a busy, busy weekend.

I like the camper. Did you have operations out of it too?

 

[tbk5]

Yes, we were operating 80m, 6m and 2m out of the RV. The operations guide describing the setup is on the CMARA web site linked above.

We used a practice field at David Prouty High School. Overall it was a GREAT field day despite the weather. We had many new people (including me!) and a dignitary--Ann Gobi - MA State Rep -Spencer. She made a contact on 80m. Lot's of new people got experience operating FD. We fielded 7 stations in total and at least one station was operating continuously through the weather until shutdown. As I mentioned earlier, no one got hurt (unless I count my thumb that got a little mangled fighting the trailer awning in the wind and rain. But we did lose of some gear. We have our Wizard of Oz moments. The early FD Score looks good. We set up a WiFi network with Yagis that worked well to run the N1MM+ logger from all the stations to a common log.

I spent a fair amount of time studying the tower setup on the RV-now thinking about how I can adapt the design to mount a tower to my wife's horse trailer. Maybe if I offer to add a PTZ video camera to record a birds eye view of her equestrian events.... hmmm, maybe....

 

[jim/boston]

It was my first field day and decided to set up on the ridge behind my home in Rangeley, Maine. We had a 7000 watt generator for power. Darkgriffin is in the background working the vertical antenna; Chuck and I are on the Hexbeam.

 

[Darkgriffin]

Can't Beat it!!