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prerunner1982
06-02-2017, 01:11 PM
If you are a new ham or are interest in ham radio the weekend of June 24th-25th is a good opportunity to get a bit more involved.

Field day is probably the largest ham radio even in North America.
It is a simulated disaster event where groups set up ham radios on emergency power with temporary antennas and try to make contacts with other stations around the Continent and World. It's a training exercise and contest in one. It runs for 24 hours so you can stay as long or as little as you like. If you get there early you could help set things up and get a good hands on radio and antenna set up. Even if you aren't licensed or hold a Tech license you can still get on and experience the HF bands. It is also a good time to see different modes as some clubs will have a CW (Morse Code) station, a SSB Voice station, a Digital station, perhaps a VHF station or satellite station.

Check www.arrl.org/field-day-locator to find a Field day site near you. This isn't an all inclusive list so if you don't find one check with your local ham radio club.

Would be happy to help with any questions you may have.

bluedragon436
06-03-2017, 12:20 AM
Nice, thanks Jon... I'm going to try and hit up a MD Ham Club's field day as it is the closest one to me... Hopefully I can meet up with some good folks, and maybe even find out when their next class/test day is.. They had one scheduled back in April, but was postponed.. and haven't seen a newer date for it.. so maybe I can find out about that as well while I'm there... Not to mention learning a bit more on how the Hams work with the EP (Emergency Preparedness) folks in times of disaster.. so I'll already have a bit of a upper leg on that once I get my lisc

prerunner1982
06-19-2017, 03:54 PM
4 days and a wake up.

Charlie Foxtrot
06-19-2017, 08:25 PM
Very cool! Thanks for the post & the link. From the link I found a group setting up near me (just down the road from where I found a Kaiser collector with a running Kaiser Willys FC). I haven't been to an arrl 'field day' since I was a kid.

bluedragon436
06-19-2017, 09:58 PM
Man... decisions decisions... That is the same weekend, or rather Saturday is the new open wheel day @ the local Jeep club.. normally I might would say I'd skip it and hit up the next one, but this will be the first one I get a chance to test out the new gears/lockers and see how they do.. But at the same time I really want to hit the field day too... why do they have to be the same weekend??!!

drakan1908
06-20-2017, 06:16 AM
Man... decisions decisions... That is the same weekend, or rather Saturday is the new open wheel day @ the local Jeep club.. normally I might would say I'd skip it and hit up the next one, but this will be the first one I get a chance to test out the new gears/lockers and see how they do.. But at the same time I really want to hit the field day too... why do they have to be the same weekend??!!
You need a cloning machine...
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170620/00bbbcc148f3e0b258c9aafbd31e3780.jpg

Sent from a van down by the river

prerunner1982
06-20-2017, 07:50 AM
Man... decisions decisions... That is the same weekend, or rather Saturday is the new open wheel day @ the local Jeep club.. normally I might would say I'd skip it and hit up the next one, but this will be the first one I get a chance to test out the new gears/lockers and see how they do.. But at the same time I really want to hit the field day too... why do they have to be the same weekend??!!

FD runs for 24 hours..... who needs sleep? or skip church, God will understand. :D

bluedragon436
06-20-2017, 08:51 PM
A cloning machine could be awesome... !!! Might have to skip the open wheel day and hit up the FD... guess it'll all depend on how the XJ acts over the next couple of days... and how the weather is supposed to be..

Charlie Foxtrot
06-26-2017, 09:16 PM
Took my grand daughter to the nearest field day location. She was somewhat skeptical at first, but after a little bribery (promise of ice cream) she sat down and started to work it. Got a half dozen contacts before she showed the next kid how to do it. SSB tuning was a challenge at first (she's used to punching in a freq for the tower when flying, this was different), but she got the hang of it. I wanted to show her some one doing code, but no joy, all voice. Thanks for the heads up. BTW we got pretty good dx for 21mhz daytime. Made contact as far west as Idaho, and made the east coast (NC, SC), Mississippi, and UP Michigan.

prerunner1982
06-27-2017, 11:30 AM
6m and 10m were good from here to the East Coast. 15m was good too.

Glad you got your grand daughter on the radio and neat she was able to turn around and teach the next kid how to do it.

prerunner1982
06-27-2017, 11:42 AM
I got to the Field day site about 0830 expecting the tower to be about 1/3 put together as we have a cantilever tilt over tower we use for FD, much to my surprise the tower was going up already. It seems the club member that had the old tower decided it was time for us to move up in the world and built a trailer with a crank up tower. Saved us about 3hrs of assembly and raising.

In total we had 6 antennas and 6 radios.

Except from 9pm-11pm when I went home to put my kids to bed and spend a minute with my wife I was at FD until we 2pm Sunday when everything was taken down and packed up.

I operated some 20m voice and digital, 40m digital, 80m voice and digital, 10m digital and 6m voice. Had a great time, though a little tired.

prerunner1982
06-27-2017, 11:56 AM
We were serenaded by corvettes doing time trials from 8am until 2pm both days. There are worse things to have to listen to.

It's funny, one of the club members went down there and was taking pics and video of the vettes running laps when he was confronted by a police officer and advised the group did not want the public to photo/video and was made to leave. This members wife works for the local newspaper and flashed her MEDIA creds and they were all up in her butt trying to show her all their cars and what what they were doing.

We figure they didn't want the pictures/videos getting out where their insurance companies could see them racing their cars. I did manage to get a couple pictures and a video before I "peeled" out of there. (see what I did there. :D )

prerunner1982
06-27-2017, 11:58 AM
Video: https://youtu.be/OmpNHs5JsqU

bluedragon436
07-06-2017, 10:56 AM
Those are some very nice ant. setups... especially that crank up trailer setup... Wonder if he makes use of it at home as well.. lol... Pretty cool to watch/listen to the Vettes run... if nothing else gives some nice background noise..