It’s the annual on-air Ham Radio Jamboree called FIELD DAY!! 24 hours straight of gleaning contacts from the hostile airwaves…. every bearing in mind that you, out in the middle of nowhere without the benefits of personal comforts and civilized fare, could REALLY be working distant stations in some sort of far-fetched emergency where the entire world’s communications infrastructure breaks down to the point where all that’s left between the end of mankind and the furthering of our legacy is HAM RADIO.
Field day – you’re in a world where some future President is pacing in his secret, underground war room, wiping sweat off of his brow, watching the Joint Chiefs argue about military strategy. 3/4’s of the US population is dead or dying, and his country is in shambles. He takes off his glasses, looks at his cheif of staff, and says “God Dammit, man…. I need to know what the weather is like in Ottumwa, Iowa and I need it now”. The chief nods at the Supreme Commander of the Army, who speaks into a telephone. In a few moments, the 5 star general beseeches the president: “I’m sorry…. We don’t know, sir. Most of America’s radio amateurs perished in the initial attack. It seems their impressive defensive shield of picnic tables, nylon tents and camping trailers sucummed to the radioactive heat just as fast as the rest of our Republic’s infrastructure.”
“Damn!” sputtered the president, pounding is fist on the table….”What the hell was I thanking these nerds for back in 2005 if all they could offer was a tent, a radio and some egg salad sandwiches?”
And CW! Don’t forget CW! When all else fails, ya knows!
Man.. that article on QRZ took NO time switching gears to a Bush/politics flame thread. Check it out if you want to see some of the most misinformed left-wing opinions that have ever been put on the internet.
I made a comment about how amateur radio is not forward thinking, and ended it with let the bashing and flaming begin. As bad as BPL is, it’s still forward thinking, unlike amateur radio these days, where the “old ones” still reminisce about spark gap and oatmeal box transmitters.
It did deteriorate pretty quickly.
At least Field Day starts on a fucking Saturday.
I never go to hamfests anymore because they’re on Sundays and I’d rather sleep in for getting up the next day. That and if I bought something cool at a hamfest, I wouldn’t be able to really mess with it until the following weekend.
Backwards ass crap.
No fair. That links sends me to QRZ. You should have warned me about that. I’m allergic to QRZ.
LMAO!
Hopefully I’ll be in my fallout shelter if this happens! I sure as hell won’t be worrying about talking on the radio, though…
I like FD because it gives people a chance to practice setting up stations on the fly. It’s cool to take an antenna, mast, coax, rig, and batteries and set them up anywhere and operate if you want to or need to as the case may be.
Our group personally, cares more about the food on the grill and how many beers we drink, while we’re sitting on our butts listening to the hosed bands that have twenty people calling CQ on each individual frequency.
Did we operate? Sure. Was it a competition? No. It was a party. We enjoyed ourselves. Some clubs have “drill sargeants” that watch every station to make sure they are “working” and making Q’s. What the fuck is that all about?
just noticed the live preview. that is neato.
-C
I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I used to work alone as 1E or 1D. Then I was in a club…4 and 5 Alpha was the rule. This year, a stripped down, balls-to-the-wall two alpha contest opearation.
I liked this year most of all. Why? I don’t have to worry about some 7 year old brat spilling Coke on my HF or tripping over a feedline. Don’t have to get pissed off about some lazy a$$hole bringing his whole fam-damly and coming just to eat food and leave without even thanking the group. And don’t have to spend hours delegating responsibility to people who don’t show up.
Yep. I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I’d rather spend my time setting up a radio and know it will be used rather than looked at while people stuff hot dogs in their faces…
Re: forward thinking – what do you expect when there is some forward motion that just stops once it can be marketed? Look at packet. Most people use 1200 baud that started to get popular 20 years ago! Out in the real world people are talking on 9600 bps digital voice occupying half the spectrum of old junk, they’re sending at least 19.2 kbps data, although that’s growing obsolete with satellites, hotspots and wideband terrestrial systems. The best we can come up with is CW, 1200 baud packet and PSK31.
No wonder we’ve become irrelevant!
We could have taken all of that technology and spectrum and moved forward. We could have built high density links between cities years ago on all that microwave spectrum. We could have invented wireless LANs. But noooo! We still argue about what courtesy tone to use on the stupid-assed repeater.
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