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Jim,
Thanks for accepting appointment to the new position of Field Day coordinator. Over the years I have made up a list of lessons learned and observations. I know others have done the same thing. I will circle back and add some of the points I have developed as well as some points others have shared with me.
One place to reference is the QST pull out that ARRL puts together. This year it was titled ARRL Field Day Guide. To me that is the easiest to understand guide that I have ever seen. Very straight forward. The actual web page with the rules for the 2021 Field Day are here (ARRL Field Day Rules), with the 2021 Field Day packet here. But, that guide is just super.
I will make the pitch that we need to start looking for people to fill the various positions that score points for the Club right now. Willing to help us score for “Safety Officer Bonus” (“100 bonus points. Include a statement with the supporting documentation for your entry, verifying that a designated Safety Officer completed the ARRL Field Day Safety Check List.”) or Social Media Bonus (“100 bonus points. Promote your Field Day activation to the general public via social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Individual participants do not qualify for this bonus. Club websites do not qualify as social media. Available to all classes who welcome visitors to their operation.”)? Dan Beard (KB7JZI) has recently accepted the newly created position of Media Coordinator, but I am sure he would welcome someone making social media posts on Field Day 2022. If you can help out with any of this stuff during Field Day 2022, please reach out to Jim Clark (WA5QEC) now.
Kathy (W5WON) and I will be there for setup and will again take the RV for generator and “cooling station” support. On both days we are pretty busy with the setup or breakdown of the RV so we can only offer a bit of assistance around the edges when it comes to helping people to get set up or to take down their gear, but I know we need to solidify support for that effort going forward. This year we got lucky and some passersby helped, but we need to get Club supporters recruited in advance and have a staffing list so we know what we have. This year we provided food for lunch and supper on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday. I believe that encouraged participation. The Club officers support that as policy going forward and believe publicizing that we are going to do that prospectively will hopefully stimulate additional support.
We want to start coordinating this stuff as far out as possible to reduce the last minute rush and to ensure no detail is overlooked. Please sign up now to help out with Field Day 2022.
Thanks again Jim and Dan!
Thanks for the information Phillip. And thank you Dan Beard for accepting the Media Coordinator position which is going to be a key element in success next year. Looking over the rules from 2021, we can easily rake in 1,000 points before we even get on the air next year. Each contact is worth just 1 point, so that’s a pretty good head start.
I may regret this later, because I could be condemning my beloved wife to a life in prison for my murder, but I will to commit a downloadable spreadsheet showing all contacts and bonus points within seven days of the end of field day. This doesn’t mean our ARRL entry will be submitted that quickly because there is some parsing to be done to eliminate duplicate contacts, verify documentation for bonus points, etc. But access to the information from next year should be useful for planning in the years to come.
A Get On The Air (GOTA) station can not only score points, but can be a way for VIP guests and others to experience the hobby first hand while there. Young operators, licensed or not on our GOTA station, will add bonus points, so we might want to start a social media campaign early.
Meanwhile, Phillip mentioned an important resource for planning. We need input from members on what worked and what didn’t work in the past. Any suggestions made this early will be considered and carefully weighed to present the club’s best side next year. We need to look at previous year’s logbooks to determine the best times to operate each band so our operators don’t get bored. While not a point value, radio direction finding could be demonstrated on a schedule alongside satellite repeater demonstrations which count for 100 points per QSO.
Looking at both point value and public impact, we might have someone (working for Dan) on each shift who notices members of the public passing through and gets them to sign the visitor book. We had a pickup basketball game going on part of the day in 2021, but if we had a sign-in sheet and information table those basketball players would have added 100 points by signing the register. A tour the operation including each station should be available for any visitor signing the log. I was amazed at the amount of foot traffic we got at the Convention Center we should be able to raise awareness of the club this way. Two of the exhibits I want to see on the outside wall of Phillip and Kathy’s cooling station RV are a map of North America with states and provinces colored in as contacts are made as well as a large “tote” board showing the bonus and current points on various bands and modes.
I would also like to find some volunteers to put together some simple, one-board exhibits explaining things like the history of amateur radio in general, the history of amateur radio in local disaster relief (we have all the newspaper clippings thanks to the curating of Jerry Keisler (WA5KZA) so such exhibits should be easy to produce. Done right and carefully stored, these exhibits can be re-used and added to each year as well.
Having a tote board like this, posted in a prominent location can give visitors a better grasp of some of what they see going on around them.]
I would love any input on presenting the hobby to our field day visitors. Here is one off the top of my head. Next to a map that has push-pins inserted showing the locations of our contacts for the day could be a table with a 100Watt light bulb burning in a socket. An explanation about all the radios they see in operation are radiating the same energy as the exhibited light bulb.
I just made my first radio contact with a ham in Suriname. 3,122 miles from house to house. My radio puts out a maximum of 100 Watts and my antenna is a couple of scraps of household wiring. My television uses nearly 700 Watts just to show me what’s on YouTube today. How many visitors might be surprised at how little power it takes?
Does anybody have any input on t-shirts for field day? I’m thinking burnt orange for the shirt color as there are several members with this color shirt already and it looks pretty good. The T-shirts would be for members, and vip guests.
“some parsing to be done to eliminate duplicate contacts…” If we use the network logging software there shouldn’t be any duplicates as the software will warn the next operator of the duplication. It worked well for us for the 2021 FD.
The N3FJP logging software will display the states/provinces and territories we have made contact with. It will not show individual stations as it does not know where folks go for Field Day – after all we have a -4- call and are in -5- land. Too bad the map won’t display the Section on the map.
For the 2021 FD I had a computer with a fairly large screen displaying the map in real time on the common table.
This is a screenshot of our 2021 results.
“We need to look at previous year’s logbooks to determine the best times to operate each band so our operators don’t get bored…”
With only two active stations four operators we were never bored. I never had trouble making contacts as many of those “dead bands” come back to life every Field Day and this year we even had good openings on six meters. They say two meters was open but we didn’t have a VHF station. For the six meter contacts I tuned my IC-7300 off of a very active HF band so I could make contacts on six meters while the band was open. My 730′ loop antenna tuned up and seemed to work very well on six.
We will need more stations and more operators before we get bored, I hope the club members will step up to staff the club event better in the future.
“It worked well for us for the 2021 FD”
One reason to internally publish the full logs internally as soon as possible to the membership is so that we can see what worked and what didn’t work. The club still doesn’t have much evidence of what “worked” and did not work in 2021 FD.
Here is a link to all the information I have been able to gather from the last 20 years of field days for the club:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ze5mmF1vZp7UY9OC-hTCLzX_lvLkFjL/view?usp=sharing
I plan on putting a 50′ telescoping fiberglass guyed pole up in the center of the circle in the picture for my HF antennas.
One antenna will be a kite-shaped loop on the pole that should cover 80 thru 6 meters.
The other possible antenna is an inverted “L” for 160 meters however I will need a distant support from someone else for the far end of the “L”. The circle shows how far out my antenna would need to go. Last year KA5LEK Ronnie put a mast up out in the field to the west, perhaps if he does the same this year I can attach a rope to his mast to hold my antenna up?
2021 RRVARC After Action Field Day Report:
This is my personal assessment of the Red River Valley Amateur Radio Club’s 2021 ARRL Field Day operations.
First I want to personally thank Kathy and Phillip for having their air-conditioned motorhome at our club’s Field Day location as the cool air helped prevent me from having a full heat stroke Saturday morning. If the air conditioning hadn’t been there, I probably would have wound up in the ER.
Kathy and Phillip also fed us very well, we did not miss a single meal and the food was delicious.
Operators:
We only had four operators operating most all the time during the entire event.We only had two stations on the air.
Needless to say we four were tired puppies by the end on Sunday.
KA5LEK Ronnie provided one station, Cindy KD5CCB along with Charles WA5VHU provided the other station. Thomas AF5WO was the only guest operator that I am aware of.
Due to poor/no planning by the club, we were instructed to identify and did so as a 4A class operation, meaning we were supposed to have 4 transmitters, we only had two transmitters on the air at our club’s Field Day site. If you wonder what this discrepancy caused, look it up.
After I almost had a heat stroke last year at Field Day while putting up antennas Cindy and I decided to rent a camping trailer that will let us operate inside with air conditioning. The other issue is our Prius was very comfortable to lay the seats back and go to sleep, our two current vehicles not so much.
We plan on putting the trailer under the pavillion in about the same spot we usually put our operating table, as shown in the photo. Phillip has been parking his motor home at the far east end of the pavillion.
The trailer has a restaurant type booth that we will use for an operating position. The bed for sleeping is not too far away but we hope to hang a blanket up for a room divider so if both Cindy and I wanted to sleep someone else can continue to operate the station.
Charles WA5VHU
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