Operating

If you’ve read other posts here, you know that I’m not one to really push public service. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it, though. That being the case, this weekend, I joined seven other ARROW members in providing communications for the annual Fourth of July paraded here in Ann Arbor.

I was stationed on the Main Street and Liberty stage, where it was my job to relay information on additions and deletions from the parade roster to the announcer. Deanne and I had a blast as we puzzled over the roster and some of the writeups of the paraders. For example, there was one guy who was riding a trick pony who had a writeup of almost an entire page. Contrast this to the Peace Coalition that had a single sentence. How’s that for PR?!

If you do take part in such an event, here’s some advice:

• If you’re going to be out in the sun, take a hat and sunglasses. And if you’re going to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt, slather on the sun block.
• Charge your HT battery the night before or carry a spare. You don’t want to endure the embarassment of having your radio go out on you.
• Use a speaker-microphone if you have one. This is the first event that I’ve worked that I’ve had one, and believe me, holding the speaker mike up to my ear was a lot easier than holdling the whole radio to my ear.

If you’re PR-minded, here’s another thing to consider. Ask the organizers if you can come speak to their club about amateur radio. I think groups like this would be fertile ground for recruiting new amateurs. They’re already civic-minded and inclined to volunteer. Teach them a little bit about radio and they’d make great hams.

Dave WB4SBE has posted some FD 2005 pics on pbase. Jay WB8TKL has also posted FD 2005 pictures on his website. If you took some pictures of Field Day, e-mail me the pics or a link to the pics, and I’ll post them here. At right, W8FSA tries to make 20m phone contacts while I supervise. Photo courtesy Dave New, WB4SBE.

Every Field Day is different. Purely from my own perspective, three years ago, I was really just a spectator. I didn’t come until Sunday morning, and only made a few contacts. Two years ago, after a year of CW practice, I was a more active participant and made quite a few CW contacts. Last year, was my first Field Day as club president and I was quite active, making nearly 150 Qs on 75m phone very early Sunday morning and mentoring at the GOTA station.

This year, I played utility man. I again did quite a bit to encourage the GOTA station participants, but I also got to operate a fair amount in the second CW station that I insisted that we set up and run. And I even made some phone contacts at each of the two phone stations, and I did a short stint at CW station #1. So, actually, I either helped with or operated each of our six stations, except for the VHF/UHF station.

Hot, Hot, HOT!
One distinguishing feature of this year’s Field Day was the heat. Temperatures all three days (including the setup on Friday) was well over 90 degrees. I don’t know how many gallons of water and Gatorade we went through, but our catering crew (George K9TRV and Sam KC8QCZ) did a great job keeping the jugs and coolers full of cold stuff to drink.

Two CW stations mean big points
The biggest difference between this year’s Field Day and last years in terms of operating was that we ran two CW stations instead of just one. Tim KT8K was the anchor of the first station, while Dennis KT8X and Joe KC8VSB were the main men at CW station #2. I operated both stations at one point or another, but spent more time at station #2.

In terms of contacts, the two stations were neck and neck up to the final hour. Then, Tim, who was operating 40m, pulled away. CW station #1 made a touch more than 700 contacts, while CW station #2 made just shy of 700 contact. Combined, both phone stations made more than 400 contacts, but to be fair, they were plagued by interference from the CW stations. We still need to work on this for next year.

Compare these results to last year, where we totalled approximately 600 phone contacts and 500 CW contacts. Very cool.

More bonus points
Not only did we make more contacts, but we also got more bonus points. Unofficially, we scored bonus points for:

• copying the bulletin! (something we have failed to do the last couple of years),
• a visit from an elected official (again something we’ve failed to do for several years),
• a visit from our Emergency Coordinator, Doug Cox N8LZR,
• having a number of teenagers make contacts,
• having a public information table,
• sending a press release to the local newspapers, and
• holding Field Day in a publicly-accessible location.

Food, glorious food
This year, George K9TRV, joined the RF Cafe staff, bolstering what was already a stellar crew. We dined like kings over the weekend (well, kings of the amateur radio world at any rate). The menu included:

• Sam’s sausages for lunch Saturday,
• barbequed pork, beef brisket and roasted corn for dinner, and
• eggs, sausages, bacon, pancakes, and bagels for breakfast Sunday.

If anyone ran out of energy for scoring points, they could definitely NOT blame it on a lack of food.

Bringing former members back into the fold
One of the ideas we had was to invite former ARROW members to Field Day. We didn’t do as well as I’d have liked with this, but we did manage to attract a couple of former members to the site, and one even renewed his membership.

As for other visitors to the site, if you count the elected officials, the newspaper reporter, and a group of my friends who came out to the site after their weekly lunch, we had quite a good turnout. I don’t know if they learned much about ham radio, but I tried to do a good job of explaining what ham radio and Field Day is all about and showing them the various stations.

We also had a lot of family members come out to the site, especially for dinner on Saturday. We put out a message on our mailling list, specifically inviting spouses and children to come. Next year, we might want to think about some activities especially for families.

Thanks!
Below are the folks that deserve special thanks for their role in making this Field Day a real success (in alphabetical order by callsign suffix):

• Mark KD8AOM
• Bruce KD8APB
• Mark W8FSA
• Jim N8GNQ
• Chuck K9HBI
• Clay W8JNZ
• Tim KT8K
• Glenda N8KPL
• Sam KC8QCZ
• Al KC8RNQ
• Dave WB4SBE
• Jeff W8SGZ
• Jay WB8TKL
• Dave KC8TQB
• George K9TRV
• Dik KC8UXT
• Joe KC8VSB
• Steve WB8WSF
• Tom WB8COX
• Dennis KT8X
• Roger W8ZRF

Thanks to all who participated and to all the spouses who put up with us all weekend.

I’ve been so busy with Field Day preparations, that I haven’t had much time to blog. Here’s some of the things I’ve done so far:

• installed logging software on my laptop,
• installed the logging software on another laptop,
• checked out the keying cable with my IC-746PRO,
• built a satellite antenna for WB8COX, so that he could devote his time to fixing the repeater,
• e-mailed all the Ann Arbor city council to invite them out to the site,
• e-mailed the Ann Arbor police, fire, and emergency management people to invite them out to the site,
• e-mailed the Ann Arbor Township board to invite them out to the site,
• recruited a public information officer (PIO) for ARROW, who sent out a press release that’s going to result in an article on our Field Day operation, and
• a bunch of other little stuff.

It’s really shaping up to be a great Field Day. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun AND make a lot of contacts.