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Ham Radio Field Day Is Here
ArticulateArne writes: "The holiest day of the year is upon the Amateur Radio community. Field Day is here once again. Field Day is a 24 hour period during which ham radio operators go out into fields and set up radios and antennas and see how many other stations they can talk to. The idea is to simulate an emergency situation, but it's a lot of fun anyway. Here is a decent explanation of the festivities, see also the official rules and other miscellaneous info. Our club, the CBCARC, W5CBC, will be out working as well, so say hi if you hear us." Combine this with geocaching, and a whole new sport is born ...
"nothing but a generator, a radio, and 4 other fat, balding men"? Doesn't sound like the field days I went to.
:) especially when RS-10 would come into view - low-power FM contacts all over the USA - or running a solar-powered digipeater in the park :)
We'd run with several radios - HF, VHF (ssb and FM both) and UHF, as well as a few packet stations. We'd use big honking deep-cycle batteries that were charged by solor panels - some commercially-made, some home-built from individual cells, one year we had a battery of electrolytics (over a full farad, *that* was fun!) to even out fluctuations caused by clouds.
Half of the rigs used were home-built. All of them were QRP - low-power for you non-hams - so that we'd be able to handle it with what we had for power. We were able to arrive, set up everything, operate all night and take it all down. It was fun
Dead? Hardly. Maybe dead for those with deep pocketbooks, but for those running on a shoestring, things are different. It's still alive, and thriving, a challenge that can be used to simulate emergency communications during a disaster.
It all depends on how you approach it, I guess.
Lemon curry?
We are running radio stations. They have the ability to do great harm if operated incorrectly - not just to "messing up someone's TV" (99% of the time it is the TV that is fault, btw) but also medical equipment, police and fire communications, aircraft communications and navigation.... THAT is why this information is publicly available - so the owner of said station can be contacted quickly and the problem fixed.
It is also a way for public service departments to get in touch with us during real emergencies.
Also, for the past 75+ years, the American Radio Relay League has been publishing QST magazine. It contains lots and lots of, gasp!, call signs in it! Ohhh! and there is CQ magazine too! And I bet one issue of CQ can potentially have more calls posted in it than an entire year of QST when the contest results get published.
Give it a rest, dude.
Randy NV0U
That is what I did with my K2. Don't remember the actual parts count, but I think it was close to 1,000,000. :) Actually, I believe it was somewhere around 600. It took me a week to build the K2. The first night (a Thursday) was devoted to inventory. I soldered the first part in on Friday night, and worked every minute I was able to in order to finish the radio - so, that ended up being like 6 hours Friday, 25 hours spread over Sat and Sun, and 6 hours each night from Monday to Thursday... so pretty much right around 55 hours build time.
There is no comparisson between building a PC and building a radio. You don't have to have any knowledge or talent to put a PC together.
Randy NV0U
That is true, Craig. But there are plenty of rag chewers out there. I am one. I am also a contester. But when I do FD I always aim to do two things: have fun for myself and try to make it fun for everyone else.
For example, I can't begin to tell you the number of young ops I heard. I am guessing they were just kids that were either harmonics or kids who happened to walk by some public field day and were invited to make a few contacts. I went straight for those.
Worked a number of them - you could hear the fear in their voices of talking to someone over the radio. It was quite funny in that "I have been there myself" sort of way.
As the day progressed and the youngsters went away I then started to listen for the guys who sounded like they were having fun and the guys who sounded like they had never worked a contest before (the ones who would stumble through the exchange) - those were the rag chewers. Had a number of nice two or three minute QSOs. It is also good to listen for people in your section. I was in KS this year, but just barely. So, I listened for KS and MO stations. Worked most of the stuff around the KC area, I think. All those resulted in some decent QSOs and as we heard each other as time progressed, we invariably would end up having yet another short QSO just to find out how things were.
If you don't like how your club does FD, you might want to think about heading out with another club next year, or, better yet, head on out with some of your friends! That's what I have done in years past and never had a bad field day yet.
then no, it is not all that hard. Tricky and difficult at times? Maybe. It IS harder than plugging card A into slot B, which any trained monkey can do.
I don't just slap a board together and consider it finished, though. There are modifications that can be made along the way. Although I have not made any to my Elecraft rig yet, I have heavily modified some other kits with my own designs.
I decided pretty much at the last minute that I should go on FD this year. So, I packed the car then headed out to my mom's house on the other side of town where she has plenty of land to put up big wire antennas. I ran class 1B-Battery this year, and was 100% solar powered for the duration.
Setup was not much of a problem. I did blow a fuse in the PV combiner box (one of the wires to one of the solar panels came loose and shorted everything). Then the Rippoff Shack cable I bought was screwed up - the idiots did not strip the center conductor of the coax when they made it. Note to RS: insulators make poor conductors. Note to self: Never by Radio Shack parts ever again as you can buy floor sweepings of much higher quality for much less money at the electronic junk stores.
My K2 worked flawlessly. I got a few much needed QRP DX out of the way too, including KL7 and KH6 on 10, 15, and 20, voice and CW. Got a lot of new states too. Oh, and I broke a pileup with a SP8 on my first call while running 5 watts out on SSB. There were a bunch of QRO stations calling him too. I was impressed with myself.
Not sure of my final count, but I don't care. I had fun and proved to myself that everything works. Well, kinda works. I fell asleep 12 hours into FD. I woke up a few hours later and got back on - only the MFJ tuner I was using decided to not give me any reading on the meters any more. Not sure if a bug has made a home in there or what as I have not been able to pull the cover off yet to look.
Randy NV0U
I don't think the 5 WPM code test is that big of a deal. I am a no-code tech right now; but, learning code is something that is worthwhile. When all forms of communication aren't working, CW is the way to go. I am actually hoping to be able to get up to 20 wpm if I have time.
Now, should the restrictions on HF be lessened for no code. I don't think it would hurt. I would open up limited space for non-code; but still leave most of it for those with CW as incentive to learn.
KG4NGM
24 hour is a long stretch, but in an emergency...
anyways, yeah, i only 18 hours, could have made it the full 24 if i started working as soon as i got up, not spent several hours setting up.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
not all hams are old or fat. Some are, and the ones who people notice frequently are, they are the ones who are at club meets all the time, and have 60 antenna on the roof of the car. But there are also alot of hams who are neither old, nor fat. Ask your friends, i'll bet at least one of them is a ham.
About the bleeding edge of tech stuff you mention, it might not all be bleeding edge, but i'll bet you didnt build your own pc. ANd some stuff is pretty bleeding edge, try telling the guys running data over 30ghz links with hardware that they built themselves that what they are doing is not bleeding edge.
Also, not all hams are guys, i know at least one of the biger 10 meter stations on the west coast was being opperated by a female this weekend.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
In some areas yes, the most visible Hams are the old ones, but there are lots of others.
SO exactly how many transistors did you use to build your PC. When i ham talks of building a radio, they arent putting premade cards in a box, they are soldering things onto boards, winding coil, that sort of thing.
That last part was a mistake on my part. So lets pretend i said 300ghz.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
Just enter any callsign you see at this callsign database to find all a poster's personal info.
Just thought I'd point out that little security leak to ya.
I won't be posting my callsign here, or on usenet, for many many reasons. I advise other Hams to be just as careful with their callsign as they would their SS number.
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NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I don't want the frist-post-natalie-portman-goat.cx kiddies to know where I live. Do you?
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NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
As per this post:
/. privacy advocates post nearly direct links to their home addresses and birth dates in this article.
Let's see how many
Just enter any callsign you see at this callsign database to find all a poster's personal info.
Just thought I'd point out that little security leak to ya.
I won't be posting my callsign here, or on usenet, for many many reasons. I advise other Hams to be just as careful with their callsign as they would their SS number.
Oops.
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I met a lot of old times (who were inactive for a long time like you ...) recently on the air on the modes like PSK31 (which looks like a reliable modern version of RTTY ...), they were all really enthusiastic about the new developments ... Perhaps people got a bit fedup with the "code/no-code" debates :-) (I am a CW guy myself ...)
Perhaps it is time for you to check back :-) Welcome back !!
I just finished organizing Field Day for the Montreal club. Despite the fact that the point was not contesting, we still racked up about 1150 contacts over the 24 hours. More importantly, we setup in a bare field outside the fire department and showed them what we can do. We'll have pictures soon of a Bronto Skylift hoisting an HF tribander onto a 35-foot tower.
The purpose of Field Day is setting up a station. That's why it's called Field Day. The contesting part just gives hams something to do for the 24 hours of operating.
If you want a ragchew contest, check out the RAC Canada Day Contest next weekend (0000-2359 Jul 1) (and look for VC2A!)
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
So you do agree the most visble and active ones do in fact meet my description?
:)
In my area at least, no. The hams are mostly mid-20s to mid-50s. 50 is old, but not OLD.
BTW, when a ham talks about building their own radio, they mean they are soldering transistors together, not sticking some prefab PCBs into a case. Building a PC is trivial compared to many ham projects.
Code is gone for the entry level. To get HF priveleges you need to pass a 5 WPM code test. Higher licenses require passing more written tests, but no more code. 5 WPM is tops now.
Personally, I like the fact that the test requires you to study basic electronics. It seems appropriate that you should know how a radioworks before you get a license to operate one. I think the ham entry requirements are just about perfect right now... if they were dumbed down any more it would turn into CB radio. Yuck.
Hmmm... I always thought Ham Radio guys were big dorks... but I suppose if I had a set... and slashdot had a set, maybe I won't have gone in to withdrawal convulsions this weekend.
(Not that many that I can see though....
where are all the Linux-Ham geeks? I know the linux-hams mailing list is pretty busy... are you all just not the
This was my first Field Day and it was quite fun. I sort of did a double shift- I visited the MESAC site in Costa Mesa with my GF in the wee hours of Sunday morning, then I went to the site of one of the local clubs I am in, OCARC Orange County Amateur Radio Club for the rest of the day, and also helped them with teardown. (I am in So. CA)
The most fun part for me really was to be able to operate on several different bands with really nice equipment (that I couldn't afford yet) on usually really cool beam antennas (that I couldn't afford yet) within a short period of time.
Not many people can say they have a nice beam antenna and full size, full power radio for almost every Ham band in the spectrum- but during Field Day that's usually what you have, all packed nicely in a 1000' circle
I actually made quite a few contacts once I got the hang of it, the longest distance was to a station in British Columbia, I am in Southern CA.
This brings up another point, it is good for us to demonstrate to the public (in CA especially) that if the power winks out, you can still talk, via ham radio!
For those that don't know what this Field Day hoopla was all about, its basically this:
All in all my 1st Field Day was quite fun and I definitely will do it again next year.
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73 de K6LNX
LinuxKnight
PS The K6LNX is my callsign (I hold a Technician class ham license), and in case you were wondering, yes, the LNX stands for LINUX! I'm a Linux and Ham geek and proud of it!
It is possible to obtain "vanity" callsigns from the FCC, only AFTER you already have a regular automatically assigned license. You submit a petition with up to 25 possible callsigns that you want, and you get the 1st one on your list that isn't already assigned to someone else. Luckily I got my first choice!
You can check to see if a callsign is "available" from Ham callsign databases such as www.qrz.com... but there might be other reasons a callsign isn't available at a certain time so you have to wait for word from the FCC itself.
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LinuxKnight
I loved field days in the Cayman Islands. Because everyone is trying to contact as many countries as possible in a short time, everyone tries to add the Cayman Islands to the list. ZF1DJ & ZF1JJ would ocasionaly start to rag chew. When asked about it, they said they loved to hear people hovering on the edge waiting for him to finish. We would take the gear to the public beach on Seven Mile Beach and work with the Boy Scouts and Red Cross. It was great to introduce the scouts to ham radio.
The truth shall set you free!
I'd like to tell you all the story of my grandfather (yeah, I know, images of the old vacation slides coming out). My grandfather was a successful businessman into his 40s. He was an executive with a firearms company (business was good at that time) and always into doing something productive.. not much different than most of us, I think. But when he turned 40 he lost his sight. As a computer professional, I can only imagine what this is like.. but anyway.. to make a long story short he retired and became a ham radio operator. Now you might ask yourself.. why in the world would a former executive who lost his sight become a ham radio operator? To join the ranks of the fat and bald?? Well, he did it first, because nobody would know he was blind. And second, because he found out he could help people! Every day in his retirement, like a job, he would check into the international radio networks. On these networks, you find serious people doing serious business with Ham Radio. Every so often he would come across someone in the world in dire medical need. In one case, it was a missionary station in Venezula who explained that they had a little boy who urgently needed medicine. In another, it was a fisherman in Honduras who had the benz and the local doctor needed medical advice. Yet another case -- one that touched my grandfathers heart -- was one where a little girl became blind after drinking antifreeze and no doctor was in the village. In each of these cases, my grandfather would patch in American doctors.. and in some cases arrange for the necessary medicine flown in by plane (often the local Miami doctors would supply the medicine free of charge). These are all real cases of how Amateur radio actually helped people. Yes, it's a hobby of lots of fat bald men, but it's also a key means of communication to areas of the world that don't yet have cell phones and wireless Internet. P.S. If you think everyone in Ham Radio is fat and Bald... here's a picture of my grandfather... god I miss him.. (he passed away about 10 years ago, god bless him). http://pw1.netcom.com/~jmulvey/wb4elx.jpg
Really, though, everyone should visit Field Day sometime, it's an indescribable experience. I'm currently kinda out of it, though... Don't try talking to me unless you want me to get frustrated and tell you to just give me your exchange. :)
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suwain_2
While there are certainly some people who fit this criteria, many are not. There are people of all different ages, and weight categories, who are hams. The public should really try to visit something like Field Day sometime; people seemed to find it quite interesting that the back parking lot of a high school suddenly had four 70 foot towers and dozens of tents scattered around.
Also, as far as the equipment, the equipment is surprisingly modern, and we don't all make it out of scrap metal... Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood, and Alinco are all popular amateur radio manufacturers.
Also, hams have launched a ton of satellites; the newly-launched AO-40 satellite has a footprint that covers practically half the Earth at a time. Now I know, with your super-duper cell phone, you can contact anyone with a phone, even if you're in the middle of nowhere.
But suppose you're somewhere like California, with the power crisis. The cell towers suddenly lose power. Or worse yet, there's a major disaster. Experience has shown that cell towers quickly become extremely jammed; transmissions on trunking radio systems get queued; and the hams help out.
Also, even in normal conditions, there's a big difference between a cell phone and a ham radio. To paraphrase someone else (dont' remember who) - would you call complete strangers on complete cell phones? Would you ask them what type of cell phone they had? No, they'd think you're a nut and would hang up.
Of course, there's more to ham radio than contacting random people and asking what type of radio they have... There are actually a lot of neat things to do with ham radio, check out something like ARRL, which has a bunch of info about ham radio.
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suwain_2
Man, what's the problem with Hams?
Chill brethren...
Hams are cool, I'm a ham, my partner of six years is a ham ( She got her "ticket, without telling me she was doing it! What a cool surprise for an OM! ).
My brother is a ham, and my dad used to be one.
I'm old (46), but not that old, and I ain't fat, my truck doesn't look like an angry porkupine, and I can carry on intellectually stimulating conversation with just about anybody, on just about any subject. Dare you... but not tonight since I just got off the air doing a four hour Reggae show on a commercial radio station here, and I'm beat (had a great time on the air though!).
There is something for everybody in ham radio, I'm not joking, check it out for yourself, there are many web sites dedicated to ham, radio, and many towns have clubs. (Watch out for all the old fat guys though. You might learn something...) (*SMIRK*)
But seriously... the club we used to belong to had old fat guys in it, and they were usually a wellspring of valuable information, as well as being interesting people to boot!
We lived in a remote area, and were able to help with emergency communications several times over the years. We performed a valuable service when "normal" means of communications broke down during a weather crisis.
Sorry boys... but the net is one of the first casualities (at least locally) during big emergencies. I know of hams who developed an internet/ham radio node using packet radio that was waaaaaay faster than any dial up connection at the time (about seven years ago.).
It goes on, and on... many hams really are on the bleeding edge. But if you aren't a "do'er" than you will be just like all those hams (the fat old one's remember?) you are making fun of...
I'm not competitive at all, but I've always had alot of FUN during every Field Day I've ever attended (and stayed up all night operating). My wife and I were on a road trip once, and lamented that we were missing Field Day, when we saw a few cars in a parking lot of a remote park we were driving by, and when we saw the antennas, we knew it was other hams participating in Field Day.
We pulled into the gravel lot, and introduced ourselves as fellow hams. We recieved a warm welcome, and a chance to operate any number of the several frequencies, and mode's they had there.
Complete strangers, and instant friends, great conversation, the offer of cold beverages on an extremely hot day, all because of a shared love for radio. It don't get much cooler than that man.
By the way... while there are hams who fit the stereotype, I've noticed that there are waaaaaaaaaaaay more young, and skinny people who are lazy than old, fat people, you might want to examine your prejudgement of hams, and of old, and/or fat people, it seems to be faulty.
73 - Kilo Echo Six Echo Bravo Zulu
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Hey, Ho, Let's Go!
R.I.P. Joey Ramone
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Ham radio explained (with pictures) in every-day language. Or, if you would rather listen-only: the scoop on radio scanning.
I hate to say it, but field day is long over now. I had a lot of fun, going out into the middle of nowhere with nothing but a generator, a radio, and 4 other fat, balding men to stay up all night and prove that emergency communications are not an issue in america. After the 260th contact we really started to fatigue, so even though we had good intentions, the "staying up all night" bit didnt pan out. Anyway, congrats to all the big-scoring stations. 73s
[sig]you really dont want the answers, trust me[/sig]