Field Day 2024 Thread

[JohnyMac]

This coming weekend is the 2024 ARRL Field Day event. As all of you are aware, the annual ARRL Field Day event is the biggest amateur radio contest in North America.

I encourage all of you to participate even of you do not belong to a club.

My club is the Susquehanna County Amateur Radio Club - SCARC. and our station call is, N3SRC. You can read more about us at,  https://n3src.org/field-day/

If you are participating in this years contest as an individual or a club, please post a short blurb on what you are doing and the results. I will add things to this thread as the event comes and goes.

73

[Felix]

Me, the non-hamster, no transmitter... yet do have a C.Crane receiver.
And though I am a wee bit far away to hear you East coasters... are there frequencies I should try to roll through to pick up anything more "local"?

Thank you for any tips.    (Non-taxable!)      ;-)

[Sir John Honeybucket]

Thankfully, this contest - like all contests - should not be on the WARC bands, allowing 'we the radio squirrels' to still enjoy the weekend, communicating in a normal manner. 

1. I DO wish that ARRL Field Day focused on actual emergency communication exercises, rather than a point contest, conveying no messages or useful information.  It would be AWSOME to have a national level exercise for actual emergency radio message passing. Then again, that's what AmRRON T-rex communications practice exercise is for, and it's coming-up again, very soon.
https://amrron.com/

2. The national traffic system is where I'd go for general message forwarding of health and welfare traffic, in an actual emergency.  A QRP rig, paper and pencil are all that I need to send and receive actual messages on their nets and huge network.  I use them occasionally for a brief message to friends out West.

73 de Sir John Honeybucket

[Sir John Honeybucket]

3. For REGIONAL and basically east of the Mississippi River, we have ERIN digital and voice SOI.

[pkveazey]

Honeybucket: I think you have nailed it. Field Day is basically supposed to be an exercise in off the grid emergency radio operations. However, it has become more of a glorified Contest. I'll probably participate at some point during this weekend, but I am not going to turn off the power, hook up the generator, and fire up the radio. I'll probably just fire up the radio and make a few contacts to help preserve the continuance of having Field Day because one day, we actually will have an emergency and it will be helpful when we really need it. I think that when we really do need it, we will have a lot of Stations that have the capability to pass and receive traffic but won't really know how to receive and forward brief and important messages without stepping all over one another.

[Searchboss]

Gentlemen, your comments about field day are refreshing. I have participated in a few field days, usually helping the local club put up or take down antennas, etc. to learn their process. It was fun to see how each operator set up their station and worked. I discovered that I do not like contests as I would prefer to pass traffic or rag chew. Many of the local club members seem to live for contests and bounce from one to another. Each to their own. Aside from learning from the experience of setting up equipment and tuning in from a different location there did not seem to be much point to contesting to me. I guess I prefer quality to quantity. I believe that AmRRON has a more useful approach to learning to respond to a true emergency or crisis.

[Jackalope]

    If Field Day was a true emergency exercise, then it should be held on a random weekend, without advance notice.  It is just another contest, and I really do not like HF radio contests.  My XYL and I are going to briefly participate with the group at our new AO, it'll be more of a networking exercise for us.  I've already expressed my disapproval of Field Day to this group, and they understand my objections.

[pkveazey]

Every year, I get reminded why I hate Field Day. I started out on 80 meters and listened all the way up to 15 meters. Are these people deaf? There were dozens of different stations all trying to transmit on top of each other. It was insanity at its finest. I'll give them one thing.... They all had their stations set up really well because I could hear them really well. I spent exactly one hour listening for certain stations and never heard any of them.

[JohnyMac]

Much of what has been written is right on. Field Day is a glorified contest under the umbrella of emergency comms. Here are my general thoughts at 10,000 feet.

1) It is a great opportunity for people to get out of their shacks and set up a field operation.
2) The fellowship within a club generated by the event is priceless.
3) Having senior members working with junior members is priceless.
4) One member always builds an antenna for the event from scratch. It is informative to all if the antenna works
    and how well it works to all.
5) Teamwork.
6) Introducing folks to contesting who were hesitant to try.
7) Introducing folks interested in ham radio to ham radio.

In my opinion, there is a lot of good that comes out of Field Day. Like everything in life, it has a lot to do with how you approach it. Everything in moderation.

This year my club had 6 stations plus a Get On The Air (GOTA station).

One station was CW,
One station was digital, and
Four stations were phone.

Antennas used were,
Dipole G5RV antenna home brew,
Two buddy stick's,
One doublet,
One vertical, and
One ENDFED.

Power used,
One station 100% solar/batteries,
The rest used a generator.

How many contacts/points? I haven't the foggiest. The goal was to learn, practice in a field setting, fellowship, food, ham radio stories told around a open fire, educating the public, and attracting new hams. Again, it is how the club approaches Field Day.

Opposite side of the spectrum. There is a good sized local club. Their Field Day consisted of,

Pony rides,
Face painting,
Game Commission brought a recently caught/trapped bear,
A raffle with over $7K in prizes,
Catered food via a food truck,
Invited big wigs from ARRL,
Local television stations attending, and
the list goes on and on.

One of the members from both clubs told me that she will not go to their FD again next year. She will go to ours. I suspect others may feel the same way.

Great comments folks. 
 
 

[Sir John Honeybucket]

Bread and circuses is a bad way to train for times when there is no bread.

[JohnyMac]

Amen Sir John.