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| no partners | | This weekend was my annual car camp trip with my Ham Radio club for the Field Day Amateur Radio contest/activity. My friend Jeff and I are the organizers of the clubs participation in this event and I look forward to it every year. We camp along FR 218 off the Rim Road.
Jeff and I usually try to arrive Thursday afternoon well in advance of the rest of the members to secure a site and plan out the site for our operations.
I arrived at our desired site about 3 pm Thursday got my area set up and Jeff and his Wife and dogs arrived about 730 pm. I helped them set up we had a few beverages and got to bed as the next day was going to be busy.
The next morning we began our site planning and figured out the location for the all important porta-potty. With the size of our group which usually hits about 35 on Saturday its a must. We have a service out of Pine deliver one. After we were setup and had the bathroom delivered I headed out to Strawberry Mountain to get a SOTA peak in and a good hike. Jeff was going to head up Barker Butte so he could do one also. My SOTA activities and the presentation I did at a club meeting have given a few other members the SOTA Bug.
After completing my activation I returned to camp visited with some more members who arrived while I was having fun on my hike/SOTA trip. I made dinner did some star gazing more visiting with the group and headed to bed.
Saturday morning was busy with prepping, working out the operating plan and getting ready for the 11am start of Field Day 2014. We took our group photo at 1030 and then it was go time we had 5 stations operating 3 doing SSB phone 1 digital and 1 CW (Morse code). For the next 24 hours it was non-stop radio fun. While I was operating I got a call on the local linked repeater system. It was a call from my HAZ hiking buddy and good friend WA7ORV Hank with well wishes for myself and the rest of the group. Hank along with Pam visited with us during Field Day 2012 so Hank knows first hand what happens. During all the activity we had 2 operators from the valley who were not club members but were in search of field day group follow our signs and joined us they were really nice people and a great addition to the crew. Each year we always seem to attract some new people.
The radio communications activity continues through out the night and before we knew it the sun was coming up. 11am Sunday was coming up quickly and we were all working on getting our last contacts in for the contest before 11am.
As the clock struck 11am or 1800 utc the bands went quiet and another field day was in the logs. This event is one of the most popular Amateur Radio activities in North America. Approximately 30,000 operators participate in groups or as individuals from remote areas to a parking lot to someone's back yard to Emergency Management Centers. This is a fun activity but it also shows and tests the ability of people like myself Grasshopper and others to establish emergency communications anywhere in a short period of time.
ARRL Field day info page http://www.arrl.org/field-day
We had a great turnout this year with several visitors on Saturday when the official contest starts. |
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| "I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts." |
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