Hopefully you saw some unusual sights around your community this weekend. Ham radio operators around the country and around the world set up for Field Day. Me and some of my friends decided to set up at a city park and ran 3 radios for the duration of the event. There are two aspects of this event that I want to mention at this time, one of which is something I like about the event and the other is something that I am not a huge fan of.

One of the main purposes of the event and the thing that makes it so much fun is for people to “simulate” emergency conditions. For example, we were at a park and ran off of generators with temporary antennas. This allows us to have experience with our “quick response” equipment and become better at setting it up in case an emergency were to arise and this capability was necessary.

It also allows some room for error and we can now evaluate what happened, what worked, what didn’t work, etc after the fact and determine what we might want to change or do differently next time. In this way it is a practice that allows us to become better at what we do and have everything along we need. If an emergency were to arise, we would know what we would need to bring and set up in order to perform different functions.

Another thing that was quite fun and awe-inspiring for members of the public that happened to stop by is that we had internet access from the middle of the park (where there normally is not internet) and did possibly generate some interest that way as well!

Now that I have mentioned some cool things about an event like that, one that that is somewhat irritating is that during these “special events” is that there is a sort of effort that is made to make as many contacts as possible, which can be a good thing because you want to know who/where you are able to talk to in case it were necessary after a disaster. However, during normal times, if two individuals were to talk on the radio, they would exchange information such as name, location, weather, type of radio and antenna that is being used, and other random conversations. Unlike those times, during these events, the information that is exchanged is basically call sign, signal report, location and then the parties move on to the next contact.

One thing that I really don’t like about this format is that one of the purposes of field day is to make ham radio more visible to the public and generate public interest. For someone who just happens to be walking by, if that is all they are hearing being said over the radio, it is probably not going to do as much to increase their interest as it would for them to hear (and possibly join in) an actual conversation.

At any rate, it was fun and we definitely learned some more and have a few more ideas for next time to make things go a bit smoother. Our list of things to bring is getting more refined and we are becoming more and more familiar with the capabilities of the equipment and how to use said equipment so each time we do this it goes a bit smoother.