Hi Folks,
I've been following this thread and thought I'd chime in. As a new ham (4
months now) and a 100% CW op, I didn't really know what to expect when I went
to my first field day this year. The old salts of our club had spent the day
before setting up stations and had everything ready to go when I arrived at the
site. It was all very organized and pretty impressive. The 3 CW ops (myself
included) were set up in a member's RV which proved to be a really excellent
place to spend field day.
To backtrack a bit, before the event, I asked one of the guys just what the
purpose of fleid day was and he said "To test our emergency communications
system and train other hams to do the same". Well, I can tell you that was NOT
what happened. Like many have said, the whole event was set up and run as a
contest. The guys I worked CW with have been at it for many decades...not just
a couple of months, so it was pretty daunting to sit down at a strange radio
with a stranger's keyer and have them say "Well, the rig is set at 26wpm if
that's ok with you".
I wrote out the typical exchange on a cheat sheet and sat down and had a go at
it. I was a bit tentative at first, but since the exchanges weren't
conversational (too bad really) and stuck to a pretty strict format, I got into
the swing of things pretty quickly. The first hour I was op, I got 25 contacts,
the second hour the band (40m) fell apart and I got about 15 contacts.
For me the actual ops were boring and pointless. I see it as a wasted
opportunity. For a new guy, it was clear that while folks were operating you
certainly didn't want to ask them a question or interrupt them for fear of
lowering the Q count.
I'm undecided whether I'll do it again next year. I might just get together
with a couple friends on a mountain top somewhere and have my own field day.
I didn't get into ham radio to be a competitor and I'm not keen on the idea of
being a human memory keyer. It just doesn't fit into my idea of what being a
ham is all about.
Best 73,
Steve
-----------------------------------------------
Steve Roberts-W1SFR
Sudbury, VT
On Jun 27, 2012, at 8:28 AM, chacuff wrote:
> Changed the Subject line...hope no one minds.
>
> Funny that should come up. We had a visitor to our site that asked the same
> question of all of our radio gear...
>
> And yes if there were an EMP event you could throw all your transceivers in
> the trash as well as the generators with solid state regulators and engine
> controls, your solar power system regulators, all your computers and network
> gear and the car you arrived in.
>
> Only answer I had for him was I would get back to the house and pull out my
> R390A/SP-600 and my Johnson Ranger (not to mention my AR-15 and a side arm)
> and start stringing a bunch of batteries together in hopes of getting a
> signal out to some far flung place that had not been effected.
>
> I don't think anyone drills for a doomsday event. Probably should though...
>
> Would be a sad end to my Ten-Tec gear though...
>
> Cecil
> K5DL
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richards" <jruing@ameritech.net>
>> Stuart... a serious question here... Will all of that, especially the
>> MESH system, work after a big EMI pulse type incident? If not, what
>> would be the fallback plan?
>
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