Pasadena Radio Club Field Day
The Club's annual Field Day in
recent years
has been held at area schools. This
year we will be at Art Center College of Design, 1700 Lida Street,
Pasadena, CA. For many years Field Day was
held at Cerro
Negro Peak in La Cañada-Flintridge,
so if that is what you are remembering, then you have found the correct
group. We now have more public access which means you can come by
while out doing your errands and we now can secure the site at
night.
Field Day is
always held
on the fourth full weekend of June. This year the days are 29 and
30 of June 2008. Begins 1800 UTC Saturday, ends 2100 UTC
Sunday.
- 1100 Saturday operating
starts
until 1100
Sunday
- 1100 Sunday Break camp
-- volunteers
welcome!
Rules
for Field Day are published by the American
Radio Relay League.
For some it's the competition,
for others
it's the camaraderie (and maybe the food), for still others it's a
chance
to test their skills (and that new antenna, radio, or camping gear) "in
the field" under simulated emergency conditions. For most hams, Field
Day
is all of these and more, an annual ham radio happening that's become
greater
than the sum of its parts.Field Day did not start out as the vaunted
test
of emergency preparedness it is considered today (nor was it on the
fourth
weekend in June). The first "International Field Day" on June 10 and
11,
1933, was "just a test of portable equipment" for US and Canadian
amateurs,
says former ARRL Communications Manager George Hart, W1NJM,
who's operated in 50 Field Day events over the years. Hart says
then-Communications
Manager Ed Handy, W1BDI, came up with the idea (Sweepstakes was also
his
brainstorm). "He had a real active mind," Hart said.Under the early
Field
Day rules, only portable stations "actually in the field, away from the
'home' address" were eligible to submit Field Day scores. At that time,
ARRL sections counted as multipliers in scoring, and
portable-to-portable
contacts counted double. (According to the old Federal Radio Commission
rules, you had to notify the FRC that you were going to be operating
away
from your normal location, too.) Operating Field Day in the early years
was further complicated by the fact that it was a lot harder to come up
with a way to supply the necessary plate and filament voltages in the
field
than it is with today's mostly 12-V equipment.It was not until the
second
annual Field Day, in 1934, that Handy's Field Day writeup in QST raised
the aspect of emergency preparedness. "Keep an operative portable at
hand
all the year, so it will be where you can put it to work promptly in
the
event of disaster or public emergency," Handy wrote more than six
decades
ago. Even with all of the ultra-portable equipment available today, his
admonition stands, especially as we recall the service hams have
provided
in recent months in the aftermath of floods, tornadoes and other
disasters.
But in addition to being a preparation for public service, Field Day
also
is fun.As ARRL Executive Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ,
said in "It Seems to Us. . ." in the May 1997 issue of QST, hams don't
get involved in public service because of ARRL or ITU resolutions that
say it's the right thing to do. "We do it because we enjoy it. We enjoy
doing something useful with our skills and our equipment. We enjoy the
camaraderie, the feeling of being a part of a winning team," Sumner
wrote.
That seems to sum up the spirit of Field Day pretty well, too.*
Get involved
and join the
fun. Talk to Field Day Chair Peter Fogg (KA6RJF)
if you'd like to help with equipment preparation (some gets done in
advance)
or taking a turn on the radio.
For further information, call
Peter
at (626) 794-6784
*Adapted from
The ARRL Letter
Vol. 16, No. 26 June 27, 1997.
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