Most years, I take a fairly extensive kit of equipment to our ham radio club’s Field Day site. This year, I’m taking a minimalist approach. Although U. S. amateur radio operators are allowed to operate with transmitter output power up to 1500 W in most cases and most Field Day operators use radio in the 100 W range, I’ll be using a 10 W rig and small portable antenna.
I enjoy the challenge of low-power operation. When propagation conditions are good, very little power is required to communicate around the world. I’ve talked with KC4AAA, the amateur radio station at Amundsen Scott Research Station at the South Pole using a transmitter power of 5 W.
I’ll be blogging some from the Field Day site, but non-ham-radio blogging is likely to be sparse this weekend.
Reblogged this on Dead Citizen's Rights Society.
sounds like an absolutely fun-filled, and fantastic time to have. enjoy.
Fun! With the Internet, I would have thought Ham radio would have died out. Glad to hear it’s still in operation.
Hams are a breed apart. They are an absolute necessity in any disaster. In any recent major storm, everything goes out, except over the air coms. Essentially what they are doing today are practicing setting up for emergencies. (The beer is purely for hydration purposes).
The internet has gatekeepers. Radio does not.
Hey Bill, don’t get too excited, you can’t make a foot long with extra extra mayo out of this kind of ham.
Reblogged this on III Percent Solution.
Have a great time. If I can, I’ll listen for you.
KF4MYX
You and John can talk all you want about Bill, and he’ll never know.
Your secret’s safe with me.
I’m only a tech class holder, so I doubt we can reach each other on the bands I’m allowed to operate on. Or more importantly, own a radio for.
You’ve got privileges on 10m. I’ll be working 10 m phone from for the last 2 hours of Field Day at K3PZN.
Any 15 meter?
15 m was open to Europe around 1700 UTC. There were a bunch of stations working a Spanish phone contest.
I’ve a friend setting up some radios on top of Monte Sano. If he has a 10M rig, I’ll listen for you. Otherwise, I’ll be directing traffic on the 2m and 440 repeater to the staging area.
We’re QRP this year, so it may be a stretch.
Can’t hurt to listen. We’ll be at the highest point in North Alabama (Not as high as Chetah in East Alabama) and facing North Northeast for most of the day.
We’re just down the road from the PVRC station. They usually use the call sign W3AO, but they are hosting W1AW/3 this year. They’re 28A.
My 10 meter rig is in pieces while I source a new power tube. My 2 meter rig also out of service while I source a new microphone for it. And my 2 meter handheld is – alas – lying with its case open as I replace the memory lithium battery ….