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Field Day 2002
suwain_2 writes "This weekend, amateur (ham) radio operators across the country will be setting up to practice emergency communications. Particularly after the tragic events of September 11th, I thought the general public, particularly Slashdot readers, might be interested in seeing what we do. This year bonus points are awarded to stations who have a "Get On the Air" station, to give non-hams a closer look (and even a chance to operator) at exactly what goes on. Unfortunately, the ARRL, who sponsors Field Day, has very little information on their site for non-hams, but what information they do have exists here. Check out the local newspaper to see if it's mentioned, and, if it is, stop by this weekend and take a look!"
Strange that it is organised by country, given the international context of radio.
Isn't this weekend supposed to be worldwide field day for satellite contacts ?
73!
Why are event announced on Slashdot the day before (or even the day of) the event?
Michael Loves Me!
The Albemarle Amateur Radio Club (WA4TFZ) will be holding it's FD2002 (warning: PDF) at the Earlysville Firehouse. Come check it out if you're near Central VA. Should be starting around 10AM on Sat. morning.
I'm going to try to bring my girlfriend to this year's Field Day in Tallahassee... Let's hope she doesn't flee in terror when she notices the ratio is out of whack. :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
From the National Association for Amateur Radio:
Why Ham?
"Ham: a poor operator. A 'plug.'"
That's the definition of the word given in G. M. Dodge's The Telegraph Instructor even before radio. The definition has never changed in wire telegraphy. The first wireless operators were landline telegraphers who left their offices to go to sea or to man the coastal stations. They brought with them their language and much of the tradition of their older profession.
In those early days, spark was king and every station occupied the same wavelength--or, more accurately perhaps, every station occupied the whole spectrum with its broad spark signal. Government stations, ships, coastal stations and the increasingly numerous amateur operators all competed for time and signal supremacy in each other's receivers. Many of the amateur stations were very powerful. Two amateurs, working across town, could effectively jam all the other operators in the area. When this happened, frustrated commercial operators would call the ship whose weaker signals had been blotted out by the amateurs and say "SRI OM THOSE #&$!@ HAMS ARE JAMMING YOU."
Amateurs, possibly unfamiliar with the real meaning of the term, picked it up and applied it to themselves in true "Yankee Doodle" fashion and wore it with pride. As the years advanced, the original meaning has completely disappeared.
Come see the Boston Amateur Radio Club operate at:
Larz Andersen Park
Brookline, MA
Behind Museum of Transportation
15 Newton St
Brookline, MA 02445-7406
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
I just setup a quick and dirty AM broadcast band radio transmitter yesterday... cheap and easy to do, if you've already got a fairly fancy function generator on-hand.
Equip:
1 BK Precision 4040A Function Generator
2 line, or higher, level audio source.
a Connect audio source to the VGC/Mod input
b Set Int/Ext modulation selector to Ext (external)
c Set AM/FM modulation selector to AM
d Adjust the output frequency (the 'carrier') to something in the AM broadcast band (about 540 to 1150 KHz)
e Attach a length of wire to the center lead of the Output BNC connector and crank the 'Output Level' adjustment to max.
f Tune in on an AM reciever (you've got one of those, right?)
g Jam on!
Actually, you could also do FM, but my FG (the 4040A) only goes to 20 MHz, way below the FM broadcast band of 88 to 108 MHz. Also, this isn't exactly a jammin' pirate station; let's just say I could pick it up from across the room.
Actually Ham Radio played a vital part in the aftermath of 9/11, here in Loudoun county (Northern Virginia), the local amateur radio operators came out in force, primarily providing emergency communications support for the area around the pentagon, helping to coordinate the arrivals of huge numbers of rescue workers and vehicles, and providing communications between the local Red Cross chapter and the hotel where everyone evacuated from Dulles airport was taken. I met many of these guys at the local Red Cross office, and watched as they built a communications network to support an area where every phone line and every cell tower was completely overloaded. At the time I couldn't even imagine the effort that probably went into building a net in New York.
Loudoun Amateur Radio Group Field Day Page
-- Jason Kohles KG4PPU
Raynet were to be the backbone of radio communications during the Cold War in the event of a nuclear strike on the UK - for details.
Evil ZEN Scientist
so we have all these small, relatively cheap, devices operating together to provide a greater service.
it almost reminds one of some sort of cluster...
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
What is a contest?
Contests are competetive events designed to simulate the kind of rapid flow of information that would need to occur in the event that radio amateurs were relied upon to handle disaster communications on a large scale.
Field Day, while lots of fun, serves the purpose of getting new people involved with Amateur Radio, and so it is generally a lot less competetive than what you'd find at the typical contest-station during a contest weekend.
In a contest, you try to contact as many other hams as possible, and you get points (multipliers to your score) for every distinct geographical region you contact. Some contests are US only, and many are worldwide. Some are focused on a particular frequency band, and some cover all HF bands.
There is nothing quite like the adrenaline that comes from making serious rate (300+ contacts per hour) for a few hours in a row. Aside from that, there is typically a great deal of team-spirit and good-natured rivalry among contesters, particularly those who are in the same state or county.
If you've always had an interest in ham radio but feared that it didn't have high enough octane to suit your temperment, look no further.
I'll post some web references below this comment soon...
Amazing magic tricks
This is probably in the ARRL link.
:)
Field Day is themed about emergency communications, although it couldn't be considered "practice" for emergencies. (Running/participating in emergency nets, etc.) - That's what ARES/RACES drills are for.
Field Day is purely a contest - BUT it is a contest that was designed with emergencies in mind. Most ARRL (and international) contests have various operator classes - In the case of Field Day, operator classes are based on how your station is powered. I think there's also a rule stating that you can't operate from your own station.
So basically, all Field Day entrants MUST be using equipment brought to the operating position for the event, not stuff that is there at all times. (I think people HAVE operated in tents from backyards, but people prefer to go hardcore and do some mountaintopping, or go to a firehouse, etc. where they can set up with their club. Club operations from community firehouses, etc. seem to be the most common Field Day arrangements.)
As a result, Field Day makes sure there are plenty of operators in this country with portable (or semi-portable at least) equipment that can be set up in a matter of hours. Bonus points to those who can operate for a weekend without a single bit of help from AC mains.
I was thinking of making the trek back up to school for Field Day, but I need to do some car shopping instead. I wish it were a few weeks later.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Has anyone noticed a rise in radio interference from HAM and CB operations, not because of illegal wattage, but more so because of the lack of adequate radio inteference shielding in the current electronic devices? Seems people have forgotten about HAMs and SSW/CB bands in this Internet and "High Tech" age.
In the late fifties, I had about 100 feet of wire strung out my window over a tree, for listening to shortwave on the regenerative receiver I'd built with a kit from Allied radio.
I also had a Ford spark coil... the kind with a vibrator (don't snicker) which generates a continuous voltage--I don't know how high, but capable of producing at least a 1 cm. spark.
One day, I clipped the Ford coil to the antenna, and called a friend of mine who lived about half a mile a way, and asked him to turn on his shortwave receiver. I keyed in "DE WQRM". He reported receiving it 5x5 on his shortwave radio--and also, subsequent short tests showed, AM, FM, and television.
I wisely decided to discontinue the experiment after a grand total of about thirty seconds on the air.
We don't need no steenkin' function generators!
Hey, come to think of it, what's so off-topic? It _was_ amateur and it _was_ radio, right?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
One of the most popular uses of packet radio seems to be accessing the local "DX Cluster"
:) I'd say the hardest part of the contest was maintaining power levels. Also, our rotor was broken so we had to send guys up onto the tower to rotate our Force12 while we hit the brake release on the rotor.
It's basically a system that allows people to report stations they hear, allowing someone looking for their final multipliers in a contest to know where to look for a station.
The interesting thing about this is that you're not allowed to advertise yourself on the clusters. As a result, if you appear, it's because someone else put you there. You'd think that the DX clusters would die as everyone would keep their "rare finds" secret so as to keep ahead, but instead, the DX clusters are INSANELY active during contests, which says a lot of good things about the ham radio community in general.
DX spots are wonderful when your club is hunting down their last multiplier (Santa Barbara) in the final hours of the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes.
N2YPH
And keeping your Collins 30S-1 happy for nearly 48 hours of continuous operation is no simple trick.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The TCARC (Tompkins County, NY - It's upstate in the Finger Lakes region. Think Ithaca) will be setting up at the fire station in Etna, NY this weekend.
Hams looking for the place, try the TCARC repeater on 146.97- once you get into the area if you have trouble finding the location. The other major repeater is W2CXM (Cornell ARC) on 146.61- - But it's usually pretty quiet.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
n 1: thigh of a hog (usually smoked) [syn: jambon, gammon]
2: an unskilled actor who overacts [syn: ham actor]
v : exaggerate one's acting [syn: overact, overplay] [ant: underact]
Best Windows Freeware
I don't have any personal experience with the NYC 'net, but I do know that the various amateur emergency organizations were mobilized for well over six weeks.
It's not always the phone/cell systems that ham radio is designed to replace - Hams are also used to augment already allocated emergency frequencies. (Police, fire). I believe the Red Cross made VERY heavy use of hams for their communications. Simply put, they needed a dispatch-style system that landlines/cells weren't suited to.
In addition, a few years back there was a NASTY ice storm in upstate NY - Many cell tower antennas iced up and ceased operation, and hams came into play then too.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Still, the American Radio Relay League seems so dated. W1AW still broadcasts Morse code practice (!) most of the day.
There is a little more to it than that. check out AMSAT for some info on one other aspect of the hobby.
'73 de
VE6LSH
Hams aren't used for emergency notification of the public. Hams primarily provide communications infrastructure to those who REALLY need it in an emergency situation.
For example, hams will often assist police/fire departments. In NYC post 9/11, the Red Cross made heavy use of hams to maintain communications between all of their mobile units and their command post.
Another emergency organization in addition to ARES and RACES is SKYWARN - In this case, hams provide the "eyes and ears" on the ground to the NOAA. Not too heavily used/needed in the Northeast, but in places like Tornado Alley it's a different story.
In fact, broadcasting is verboten on the amateur bands - So theoretically emergency notification is against FCC rules. (Not like the FCC would care in such a situation. In fact, I believe there are clauses in FCC rules saying that the rules don't apply for emergencies.) Nonetheless, I agree that amateur radio is not the proper medium for emergency notification, but that is not the goal of the amateur emergency organizations.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
And it's also what Nikola Tesla did before Marcoli.
. htmlt ml rad io.htm (less detailed an account)
The USPTO initially held the position that Marconi's device used Tesla's patents ("Many of the claims are not patentable over Tesla patent numbers 645,576 and 649,621"). In 1904, the USPTO reversed itself, probably due to financial backing from JP Morgan, et. al. Tesla was broke and tried to sue in 1915 (Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1911 for the radio), but couldn't push it. In 1943 the Supreme Court reversed the USPTO's decision, giving prescedence to the Tesla patents, probably largely because Marconi was suing the government for using radio without licensing it.
Some of many sources:
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio
http://www.mecfilms.com/dna/indev/patent2.h
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/b
If you're already a ham, just ask on the local repeaters, or get in touch with someone on 146.52.
If you're not a ham, check your local newspapers, or just go to google, look for an amateur radio club in a geographic area near you. For example, I live in Clay County, so search for Clay County Amateur Radio and you'll eventually find our web site.
We have a blast over field day. Typically, operations are done using emergency power. My club has a generator on a trailer, for field day as well as for emergencies.
The other cool thing about field day is that all you tecnician licenses (who can't normally transmit below 30 Mhz) can because clubs will have General and Extra class control operators around. So you get to play on HF and get a little incentive to upgrade your license.
So, anyone's who's got a few hours over the weekend, we start at 1800 UTC (13:00 CDT) on Saturday, and go for 24 hours. Show up, ask questions, and learn stuff.
The DSRC will be hosting their annual Field Day outing on the grounds of the Sarnoff Corporation in Princeton, NJ on Route 1 at Washington Road. Visit http://www.nerc.com/~jdegood/dsrc/ for more details.
:)
If you're going to do Field Day, do it in Princeton, home of Albert Einstein and color television. Not to mention the first place on land to hear the Titanic's distress calls!!
Intelligent Life on Earth
I was NOT a ham at the time, but the NY effort was huge. It was what I needed to get off my butt an get my license
Since that time I've gotten involved in NYC ARES. In fact, I've become the Queens County Assistant Emergency Coordinator
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Actually The Red Cross of NYC had to rely on Hams during 9/11 because the phones were really messed up, and they figured they would use their "Nextels" - guess what? They didn't work - since that time, a bunch of the agencies here in NYC have taken on a new respect for what the HAMS here in NY - we get invited out a lot more
73
KC2IXE
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I've always been too lazy to get my code license. (Partly a chicken and egg issue - HF equipment costs $$$, which I'm reticent to spend w/o a code license. Don't wanna bother with code if I don't have the equipment.)
As a result, my first HF experience was operating as W2CXM my senior year in college. Contesting is FUN.
N2YPH
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Try APRS... A lot of the old TNCs are firmware-upgradable to include built-in APRS.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
NOVA QRP Club (http://www.novaqrp.org) will be at Lake Fairfax Park in Reston, VA.
Sterling Park Amatuer Radio Club (SPARC) at one of the middle/high schools in Sterling, VA.
73
KS1G
Mod parent up...I think this is an interesting topic to discuss.
... digitally communicate with others around the world and send....email! I could even download weather fax imagines from sattelites and see the radar before the local newscasters could. Amazing.
.TV domain names more than anything.
... yes, morse code is cool, and yes, some of the digital modes are still cool, but it's nothing like what it used to be, and sadly, probably won't ever be.
I've been thinking along the same lines for a while....I got my ham license back when I was 12 years old ('91) and the Internet/Web, though well on their way, were not a thing of public knowledge (weird to think about that, eh?). Likewise, cell phones were still in the "ultra luxury" class and were not things that everyday people had.
Ham Radio changed my perspective on a lot of things, and that time it was insanely cool -- I could fire up my HF radio, aim the yagi, and have a conversation with someone in Australia from my bedroom in NYC. Amazing. Even better, I could talk to people in exotic countries in Africa (Mali is one I remember nailing and being very excited about), the Middle East (I spoke with hams in Kuwait, Jordan, and Israel regularly), the Baltic States (Yugoslavia, etc.), and even tropical pacific islands -- very cool stuff for a 12-year-old.
With my handheld 2-meter radio, there was this mysteriously cool things called "Autopatch", where I could use the local repeater to....make phone calls! (that everyone with a scanner could and would easily listen to) Wow...now I had a cell-phone-like thing years before I or my friends would actually use cellphones, and that too was awesome.
Even with my computer, I could plug it in and use RTTY or CW to
The Internet changed a lot of that, and very seriously. Now, talking with someone in Australia isn't so exciting when I can log onto IRC and see thousands of Aussies in their own chat rooms (heck I can log onto an Australian porn site and "talk live with buxom babes waiting for me").
Exotic countries in Africa now bring to mind open relays, spam, and scams more than they bring excitement, and tropical islands are money-making opportunities for
And digital weather maps? Woop-de-doo....weather.com and weatherunderground.com have those pretty much taken care of.
So I'm going to agree -- the allure that ham radio once had for me is gone
--noah
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
I mean its not a bad thing, it keeps the geezers off the road for a while...
Are you sure about that? I'm thinking they're more on the road than ever.
de KF9FR
You can do some plenty fun things with a Tech license; for local communications (which can include things like helping with communication around a marathon course, if you are a "people person"; or experimentation, at high enough frequencies to get enough bandwidth to be interesting for computer networking, if you are a gear-hacking type of person) it's all you need. I know a reasonable number of people who really don't see any reason to bother "upgrading" to a license with more "privileges", even after the recent license restructuring.
But, if you do want to get into long-distance communication (or if you just want a higher license for purposes of willy-waving, which was my primary motivation because honestly Tech covered everything I really wanted to do), my experience was that passing the 5 WPM test was much easier than I expected. (I guess this is not surprising or a sign of extraordinary brilliance on my part, since, I'm told, small children also pass it without difficulty.)
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
I got into it because I once had an hour commute and wanted a hobby I could do on the road. Talking on 2m repeaters initially seemed like alot of fun. Now, I too am an "idle key". I discovered that unless I took myself and the ham radio hobby as seriously as the members of the clubs, I was less than welcome. They really don't cotton to dabblers and that best described my interest. The fancied themselves as emergency officials of some sort or uber engineers. If you weren't inclined to get involved with this, you sorta become a persona non grata amoung the hams. Many were given to power driven arguments about esoteric technical stuff. One of these hobbyists baited me into an argument about certain aspects of power supply design. I've no doubt he was smart enough to build one that would work but that doesn't equate to designing them for a living for 15 years. That's just one example. I listened while a friend of mine's transmission on a local repeater was jammed by a member of the radio club who helped maintain the repeater because he was about to give out the control codes for the talking S meter, horror of horrors. In time, I felt less welcome on these repeaters because my participation was purposely limited and lost interest.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
RTFARRLP -- fourth FULL weekend.
:)
Um, yes, I know. Fourth FULL weekend is the same as "fourth Saturday [plus the following Sunday if you have an unusually energetic club]". Thus, if you would give the matter 30 seconds' worth of thought, perhaps you would realize that that's exactly why I mentioned setting an appointment for the "4th Saturday".
But I do appreciate your desire to be helpful.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
I think you missed the point... perhaps that's why you don't operate anymore.
I mean sure, if you just want to talk to other people there are easier (and better) ways to do so. We lost a lot of folks to the Internet revolution because they simply liked to chat with people. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm an Internet junkie myself.
There's more to it than that, though. For one, it's a challenge. If you like challenges, it's a great hobby. Trying to talk to someone in France while both of you are coping with an unusual accent and bouncing a weak signal off of the atmosphere is very challenging (and VERY exciting). If that doesn't satisfy your desire to be challenged, try to do morse code by bouncing a signal OFF THE MOON.
Or maybe you'd prefer to talk via satellite. There are dozens of amateur radio satellites in orbit right now and YOU CAN USE THEM TOO.
To truly understand how radio waves bounce around is also very difficult (indeed, impossible in some respects... it's very voodoo). Once you sort of get it straight in your head, it's exciting when you're right. Especially if you're trying a little experiment to see if it helps matters.
Most people take cell phones, radio stations, satellite TV, walkie talkies, and other wireless items forgranted. Learning what makes all that work is VERY exciting (to a geek, anyway).
Even better than learning, though... YOU CAN DO IT TOO. Ever wondered how television transmitters get a signal from a camera onto your TV? Or, better yet, have you ever researched the subject and wished you could experiment with it? YOU CAN.
That's just scratching the surface, too. It's a big onion and the more you peel away the more there is.
Sure, there are some "old farts" out there... but those are the nicest and most helpful people you will ever meet.
As for 9/11, yes Amateur Ops were in huge demand. I'm not sure if you noticed, but there was a large antenna on the top of one of the WTC towers... almost all of lower Manhattan's public safety stuff was on that tower. Not to mention television transmitters, radio transmitters, and so on. It was not only a loss of public safety communications but general public communications as well.
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
... or at least, it was supposed to be.
:)
Take a look at eBay's components and test equipment sections sometime. For the price of a decent HF station, you can outfit your shack with better equipment than NASA had when it launched the Voyager probes. If you can't think of something interesting to do with all that stuff, it's time to turn in your license and take up birdwatching.
The Amateur Radio Service's underlying charter emphasizes the advancement of the radio arts and sciences, and for a long time, that was what hams did. Things slowed down for awhile when Heathkit went away and the Japanese started commoditizing the radio business, but those things happened a long time ago. The truth is, you can do more fun stuff with ham radio now than at any time in the past.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
They are the only guys that are usually bigger nerds than I am.
Their endless facination with acronyms and decimal points reminds me of...er...
...crap...programmers like me.
Nevermind.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I probably should I have one of the few digital languages a person could understand :(. Oh well :).
A while back we sent up an amateur radio balloon that reported altitude, temperature - and a few other things via cw - oh yeah and its callsign.
If you were only interested in using ham radio as a means of communications, I can understand why you might be tired or bored with it.
What motivates and interests me is actually building things, networks, infrastructure, transmitters, receivers, learning about a new or at least new to me, modes (e.g. QMSK). In fact I spend a very small amount of time "on the air" with most of the interesting bits happening on the bench.
I agree with your point. This is certainly one of the better parts of the hobby -- the study and and practice of radio itself and indeed, the appeal of this won't go away.
I guess for me it was mostly about the communication (though that's pretty silly, since most of the contacts I had were rarely more than "hi this is what i'm using what's the weather like where you are?"). But I suppose the means (i.e. building and tinkering), though they were fun, were still a means to an end. And when that end got less exciting, the means got less exciting. To each his own, though, and I hope you continue to enjoy things!
That being said, I still think there are novel communication-related things going on in the hobby -- the AMSAT stuff is still amazingly cool (how many "regular" people do military-style sattelite tracking on their home PCs and then use a dedicated sattelite communications channel?). Also, EME stuff is outta-this-world (ha ha ha), and contesting is still a thrill that can't really be matched elsewhere.
--noah
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
But, if you do want to get into long-distance communication...
I did some long-distance work via satallite when I was still a no-code tech (I'm an Extra now). It was one of the main reasons why I got my ticket.
As a matter of fact, tommorow will be 11 years since I passed the test (At a field day no less!)
BWP
AKA N5VMF
If you've got a processor in there, you can probably synthesize voice. Even the little $1 Atmel parts have more than enough power to do the job.