Yesterday, on our club’s Zoom meeting we discussed Field Day. This year, we’ve opted to all operate and submit our scores separately. It may not be as much fun, but it will give our club an opportunity to score more bonus points. One way to do this is to have each member send out a press release. I volunteered to write a sample press release that could then be adapted by other club members for their own operations. Here’s what I came up with:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dan Romanchik, KB6NU
734-930-6564
[email protected]Amateur Radio Operators Adapt to COVID-19 Crisis
Ann Arbor, Michigan – June 12, 2020 – The last full weekend in June is a big one for tens of thousands of amateur radio operators all over North America. It’s Field Day weekend, a combination emergency-preparedness exercise, public relations event, and club picnic. Clubs and individuals tune up their power generators and charge their batteries and get on the air to make radio contacts with other participants. It’s normally a pretty big deal for the ARROW Communications Association, the amateur radio club in Ann Arbor, MI. The club sets up five separate stations in the park just north of the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport and draws well over 100 participants.
This year’s club event is yet another casualty of the COVID-19 crisis, but that’s not deterring ARROW members from participating in this year’s Field Day. Many are planning to set up and operate emergency-power and alternate-power stations from their homes.
For example, Dan Romanchik, amateur radio callsign KB6NU, plans on setting up a temporary station on his front deck on Orkney Drive in Water Hill. The station will include a low-power (5 W) transceiver (transmitter/receiver combination) and a temporary antenna that he’ll set up in the flower bed in front of his house. To power the transceiver, he plans to use batteries that he charged using a solar panel.
To make contacts, Romanchik plans to use a variety of different modes, including voice and digital communications. He’ll also be using Morse Code. “Morse Code is a very efficient way to communicate,” he says, “especially when you’re using such low power.”
Romanchik notes that one of his objectives is to ensure that his equipment will be operational, and should a real emergency occur, that he can send and receive messages. “Even if the power goes out,” he says, “I should be able to keep in touch using batteries charged with my solar panel.”
2020 marks the 82nd annual Field Day event. It was started in 1933 by the ARRL, the national association for radio amateurs, and has been held every year since then, except for the years 1942 – 1946, when amateur radio was suspended during WW II. There are currently more than 750,000 licensed radio amateurs in the U.S., who donate the equivalent of millions of dollars per year providing emergency and public service communications.
For more information about Field Day, the ARROW Communications Association, or amateur radio in general, contact Dan Romanchik, KB6NU, email: [email protected], phone: 734-930-6564.
Now, all our club members have to do is to replace my contact info with theirs and replace the three paragraphs in which I describe what I plan to do with what they plan to do.
Feel free to use this for your own Field Day press release, and have fun and be safe!
Eric WD8RIF says
Thanks, Dan–nice press release template!
Bill Dornbush says
Once I draft a press release, shouldn’t I send it somewhere? Where would you suggest I send it?
Dan KB6NU says
Well, if you don’t send it somewhere, you won’t get the 100 points. :)
I’m sending mine to