This weekend, I actually spent more time off the radio than on it, as I attended the 2005 Michigan Section Campout. This event, started seven years ago as a “retreat” for the Michigan Section leadership, but has been open to all radio amateurs for several years now. Ably organized by John Freeman, N8ZE, it’s a fun event for hams and their families.
I arrived Friday night, just in time for karaoke. Fortunately, I managed to avoid having to sing by staying outside of the pole barn, but those inside sounded like they were having fun.
Saturday morning, Dale WA8EFK and I, who actually were staying at a nearby hotel instead of camping, got up bright and early to get to the camp by 7 am so we could help prepare and serve breakfast. All of the section leadership pitched in and put on a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, pancakes, biscuits and gravy.
After breakfast, there were a series of forums, including sessions on ARES/RACES, the National Traffic System (NTS), ARRL issues, and fox hunting. They were all very interesting and worthwhile. I came away with a number of ideas, some good, some perhaps not so good. In no particular order, they are:
- Perhaps one way to increase the amount of real traffic on NTS and create some good PR for ham radio is to offer to send radiograms at special event stations.
- I gotta get moving on the Michigan clubs website.
- It’s probably a good idea to start collecting data on who’s offering amateur radio classes, what types of classes they’re offering, and what types of success rate they’re having.
- It might be a good idea to somehow offer ham radio class teachers some training, in addition to the leadership training I’m planning.
- I gotta do something about recruiting people to help me work on some of these crazy projects.
- It might be fruitful to recruit new hams from groups that are already civic-minded, such as neighborhood watch groups.
- We need to go after homeland security money more aggressively. This money could possibly be used for training new hams.
Of course, if you really didn’t want to sit on your butt on a summer’s day you could take advantage of the amenities that the campgrounds had to offer. There was a small lake on the property, for example, and canoes were available to take out on it.
There were also a couple of radio stations set up at the campgrounds, and you could operate them if you liked. I almost sat down to work a little CW at one point, but then decided against it to enjoy the beautiful weather.
All in all, the event was fun and I got to meet a lot of great people. I would encourage all hams–and certainly those in Michigan–to think about attending next summer. For more information as it becomes available, watch the MI section webpage on the ARRL website.
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