We attend ARRL Field Day and interview Mike Patterson with the Salvation Army and member of the Charlotte Amateur Radio Club - W4CQ. We also review the Tram 1185 Amateur Dual-Band Magnet Antenna.
The Two Way Radio Show TWRS-62 - Amateur Radio Field Day 2013
I heard you interview someone, but did not hear anything of Field Days in your show.
Maybe next year, you could get a General Class License and participate in Field Days and do a proper Field Days program to share with the forum.
70 Cm, 2 meters and 6 meters did not support any type of propagation necessary to operate a Field Days station on those bands and 10 was no better.
I don’t understand that, because 11 meters is basically just one Mhz away and if you can hear people on the Chicken Band, you ought to be able to hear people on 10 with the same amount of power and antenna as the people on 11 meters is using.
Apparently you didn’t listen to the entire interview. The first half discussed the symbiotic relationship between the Salvation Army and the Charlotte Amateur Radio Club and how they got together. The latter half of the interview was focused almost entirely on Field Day. In fact, I mentioned that my son was in the radio room down the hall making contacts on the air while we were conducting the interview, and he was. You also would have heard us talk about the opportunity Field Day offers non-hams to actively participate in the event and experience amateur radio themselves.
Maybe next year, you could get a General Class License and participate in Field Days and do a proper Field Days program to share with the forum.
If you had listened to the entire interview, you would know that you don’t need a General Class license to participate in Field Day. As long as the station operator is present who is licensed to operate on those frequencies, it is the one day of the year that hams with a “lesser” class license and non-hams can participate. There were both General and Extra class hams actively in control of and operating the club and GOTA stations, which were specifically and legally set up for such use.
I went there to cover the event. I did. My son was there to participate. He did. We were there for nine hours and not once did any seasoned amateur radio operator question our participation or our coverage of the event. In fact, they all seemed quite happy to have us there and welcomed us with open arms. Some of these folks have been hams for nearly half a century and not one of them had a problem with us or the show. What is your idea of participation? Perhaps you can enlighten us and define what a “proper” Field Day program would be like.
Perhaps if you listen to the entire show, you may hear something you missed.
There is something wrong with the link, the first half of the interview ran and then it stopped before the Field Day event.
I tried the link twice on two different search engines - Mozilla and Internet Explorer and it did the same thing twice.
I did not try the download MP3 - it worked.
But you did not do any coverage on the actual field day event.
That would have done a lot more to show people what Field Days sounds like what what goes on there.
Would you like to talk to N1ND - Dan Henderson
ARRL Regulatory Information Manager
The only person that can operate - other then the person licensed for the frequency in use would be a non ham or the new ham, or a inactive ham - regardless of license class, working 3rd party on a GOTA station.
4.1.1. Get-On-The-Air (GOTA) Station
. Any Class A (or F) entry whose transmitter classification is two or more transmitters may also operate one additional station without changing its base entry category, known as the GET-ON-THE-AIR (GOTA) station.
This GOTA station may operate on any Field Day band, HF or VHF, but is limited to one GOTA station transmitted signal at any time.
4.1.1.1. This station must use a different call sign from the primary Field Day station.
The GOTA station must use the same call sign for the duration of the event regardless if
operators change.
The GOTA station uses the same exchange as its parent.
4.1.1.2.
The GOTA station may be operated by any person licensed since the
previous year’s Field Day, regardless of license class. It may also be operated by a
generally inactive licensee. Non-licensed persons may participate under the direct
supervision of an appropriate control operator. A list of operators and participants
must be included on the required summary sheet to ARRL HQ.
4.1.1.3. As per FCC rules, this station must have a valid control operator present at
the control point if operating beyond the license privileges of the participant using it.
4.1.1.6. The GOTA station may operate on any Field Day band.
Only one transmitted signal is allowed from the GOTA station at any time.
That is the one thing that you can do on Field Days and is encouraged and you even get bonus points is if that person made - I believe it is 20 contacts, but they have to make all 20 contacts in one sitting. You can’t make 10 and then leave and come back and make 10 more.
Any non licensed person can operate 3rd party during Field Days, but once you get a license, you have to abide by your license class rules other then the GOTA station.
Are you sure?
From the ARRL Field Day 2013 Rules:
4.1.1.2. The GOTA station may be operated by any person licensed since the
previous year’s Field Day, regardless of license class. It may also be operated by a
generally inactive licensee. Non-licensed persons may participate under the direct
supervision of an appropriate control operator. A list of operators and participants
must be included on the required summary sheet to ARRL HQ.
4.1.1.3. As per FCC rules, this station must have a valid control operator present at
the control point if operating beyond the license privileges of the participant using
the station.
There were a lot of old hams present who were fully aware of the rules. If there had been an issue, they would have been right on top of it.
I noticed you edited your original post while I was posting my reply.
(quote) - What is your idea of participation? Perhaps you can enlighten us and define what a “proper” Field Day program would be like.
I am perplexed by what you mean by program?
Program as in your show? or program as in a proper Field Days Club Program?
Program as in your show would have been for you to go around to the different operating stations and make some type of video / audio recording that we could use to promote amateur radio and Field Days in a positive light.
Um, with the advent of UTube videos - there is still not a lot to do with Amateur Radio Field Days and promotions due to the fact that most amateurs tends to be older people who are gun shy of computers and the internet, and they do not like to operate much and mostly would just like to sit around and talk on a HF net and when you ask them to participate in Field Days - they go in one of two directions.
They will either hog up one station all for themselves and refuse to let anyone else operate on that frequency until the band falls out, and then they will go home, beating their own chest about how they did such a great job for the club by making a lot of contacts.
The opposite direction is the guys that will bring their radios and their antenna’s and will make a couple of contacts and then the radio will sit there empty the rest of the day and night.
Most times they hang out around the food table, and are all tuckered out after doing all the work of putting up the antenna’s and putting everything together.
Then you will get the NEW HAM that is all full of pee and vinegar and wants to help out and does a lot of the contacts for the club, which is great, because they are the backbone of a clubs existence and the reason why we do Field Days in the first place, other then to prove that we can still operate in a emergency and to test our equipment out in field conditions.
Eventually the club gets lazy and no one wants to do anything anymore and so they just turn it into a picnic and they refuse to put up tents or operate mobile or remote and they just run back to their local club house or EOC and just hang out waiting for the next batch of new hams to take over, but they won’t let the new hams pick up the ball and run with it.
Many of the clubs here has stopped Field Days all together and when the last club member dies, the club will close and that will be the end of it.
I did see 3 new club license requests the other day on the FCC Database, but there is no telling if it is an actual club or just a request for a club call sign, to be used for contesting.
Over the holidays ( summer) the total number of licenses went into a deficit for the first time in about 2 years, but last weeks numbers has picked up the total number of licenses and now we are on the plus side of things again.
Great question. I’m not sure what it refers to. I was quoting you.
We actually brought a video camera with us, but we were just getting acquainted with the club members and other participants and I didn’t want to overwhelm them with the media coverage so I opted to keep it low key this time. I am certainly up for expanding Field Day coverage next year, and we may even do a video. It’s a great idea.
The link only takes you to the page with the episode and the player. I just played the entire show in Firefox and IE and it played fine for me in both browsers. If you are having trouble with the player or you are trying to access it on an iPad or other non-flash device, there is a download link below it that will download the mp3 so you can play it in whatever player works on your device. That link has been tested and does work.
You can also hear it on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-two-way-radio-show/id421917360
Blubrry.com http://www.blubrry.com/twowayradioshow/
or Stitcher Radio http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-two-way-radio-show
You can also hear The Two Way Radio Show on the Roku through the Blubrry Channel.
One of these sources should work no matter what computer, tablet or smartphone you are using.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for the suggestion of the MP3 player - yes it worked.
You might be wondering, why is this guy so critical.
The answer is simple. Back in the day, before you became an amateur, you had to actually learn everything and you had to actually know everything and the code part kept a lot of people out.
The HAM IN A DAY class and the internet has killed the intelligence level of the average entry level class amateur due to the fact that we now supply all of the questions and the answers and that most people do not bother to learn the rules or how to operate.
The only exposure to anything amateur radio related for them might just be this forum. Because they don’t actually do anything with amateur radio and because they don’t bother to join the ARRL and they don’t get the QST Magazine, they will tend to believe that anything that you do or say will be 100% correct and that if you say that they can do something, they will attempt to do it and if you say that they don’t have to do something, they won’t bother to do it.
This is a real good forum.
It has a lot of real intelligence here and maybe at some point, your company may choose to start selling amateur radio transceivers - which would be a good thing because I don’t see a lot of stuff being offered in North and South Carolina other then the mail order stuff on the internet and the big hamfests such as Shelby.
You have the opportunity here to do two things.
One is to break the cycle that had started a long time ago with the CB radio people that migrated to the Amateur Bands. For the most part, most of those people should be dead in the next 20 years or so.
The other thing is that YOU can present Amateur Radio in a positive light to people who otherwise would never be exposed to this type of radio service and might never think about getting a license or becoming a ham.
People in law enforcement, firemen, ambulance people, already thinks that they know how to use a radio, and maybe they do.
But because they cannot use it as a hobby, might see amateur radio as just another tool in their tool box and won’t see the benefits of actually getting a license or operating unless you make it look fun to them, or something that they might be interested in doing - but did not know that it existed.
The amount of licensed amateur radio operators in the USA is about 550,000 people, give or take 50,000 according to deaths and people who just dropped out and never bothered to cancel their license, or never bought a radio or did anything other then take the test and get a license.
There is probably 50,000 club and contest call signs in the pool.
Even at 700,000 licensed amateurs, that is still less than .016% of the total population of the entire United States.
The ARRL says that they have about 160,000 members.
So where does the rest of the amateur radio community get their information and exposure to amateur radio technology, new products, and upcoming events.
The Internet, club membership, word of mouth - on the radio, or they don’t get any training or exposure at all.