[HN Gopher] 2025 ARRL Field Day
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2025 ARRL Field Day
Author : rookderby
Score : 57 points
Date : 2025-06-28 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.arrl.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.arrl.org)
| rookderby wrote:
| Today/tonight is the 2025 ARRL Field day. Come find a ham to talk
| to.
| neepi wrote:
| No. This is the one day I never operate. It's a shit show.
| Seems to be an excuse for people in the countries with crappy
| regulation enforcement to fire up their kw+ transmitters and
| monster HF antennas and blast them past us trying to hit the
| US.
|
| As always most of the fun is closer to the noise.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| As someone who only has a 5w transmitter, I avoid field day
| and major contests. I love doing Parks on the Air when
| camping, and that ends up being a lot more enjoyable.
| grendelt wrote:
| This is the way.
|
| QRP for FD is like going fishing without a hook. You better
| enjoy the scenery and getting away from home because you're
| not going to bring in much.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Different people find "fun" in different things. Field Day is
| fun for the planning, deployment, and operation of ham
| stations in the field. Some community outreach, some
| teamwork, some emergency preparedness, and some good
| practice.
|
| I agree that actually operating during field day is less fun
| than at any other time of the year, unless you're in
| "competitive mode" and are trying to win the most contacts in
| your class. During these three days, the conversations are
| very short and mostly all the same, so there's not much "rag
| chewing" going on.
|
| Field Day can also be fun in the sense that you may get
| permission to do things that you ordinarily could not do,
| such as operate a station in a public park, and camp there
| with it for two nights. Another "fun" element is improvising
| with what you have, such as setting up a station on the top
| floor of a parking structure in a metropolitan area.
| grendelt wrote:
| > Field Day is fun for the planning, deployment, and
| operation of ham stations in the field. Some community
| outreach, some teamwork, some emergency preparedness, and
| some good practice.
|
| All things that can be done at any other point during the
| year _and_ you have the added benefit of being able to hear
| other stations.
| howard941 wrote:
| This is a great time to be on the air especially if you're into
| late nights and enjoy setting up an outdoor station. Want to work
| all states? This is a good contest for it. It's my 2d favorite
| with the November CW Sweepstakes coming in first place.
| tonymet wrote:
| Yes and no. Contestants can be pushy and hasty . It's not fun
| if you just want a casual contact or if you don't have a
| computer nearby . I do most contacts while hiking and I don't
| enjoy contests
| howard941 wrote:
| Oh FD is for sure an enemy to casual conversations. Wouldn't
| even try. Can't speak to the computer part, dupe sheets and
| paper logs work. More labor later but less RFI to deal with.
| II2II wrote:
| It's pretty much what you make of it. I participated in Field
| Day with a club many years ago. It was basically an excuse to
| get out of town, setup a station (led by people who loved
| that aspect, and they served as mentors to those who were new
| to setting up a station), make contacts or achieve goals that
| would be difficult to do under ordinary circumstances, give
| new members a chance to learn new skills, test an
| experimental rocket engine, get to know people with the club,
| and many other things. Yes, you have to treat the people
| you're contacting as though they are die-hard contesters. On
| the other hand, that is not an excuse to not have fun.
|
| That said, I can understand how it would be difficult to have
| fun if you were operating solo.
| grendelt wrote:
| > This is a great time to be on the air
|
| Actually it's not. It's just wall to wall QRM. You can't
| exactly setup on a single frequency and call CQ without some
| asshat setting up right on frequency. I abhor Field Day because
| it's chaos. POTA, state QSO parties, 13 Colonies, Museum Ship
| Weekend, those are my speed.
|
| Most every ham club that sets up for Field Day talk like
| they're doing "public service" and "outreach", but then they
| post up at some obscure location quite a way away where most
| any 'public' would be. The scant visitors they get are either
| ignored or greeted in an overly excited way and then every old
| timer wants a chance to impress upon the visitor their view of
| radio which invariably runs off all but the most determined
| visitors who can see past all that. I've been to over a dozen
| different club field day events across the country and most of
| them are pretty cringy.
|
| ---
|
| The best was Tucson almost 20 years ago because my wife and I
| happened to be tent camping on the same mountain peak where
| they were setup. She retired to the tent early, I played radio
| well into the night after the daytime RF pandemonium died down.
| In the morning one of the club members who also runs a
| restraunt made everyone omelettes to order on his catering flat
| top.
|
| One of the worst was Palm Springs RATS. Their setup was at
| their EOC and closed to the public. I had to essentially
| "prove" I was a ham to even be allowed in with them. (I told
| them my callsign but that wasn't enough. "Hi. I'm <callsign> in
| town for work and thought I'd drop in to do Field Day with you
| guys." "Do you know anyone here?" "No, I'm just in town for
| work." "Well, this is a ham radio event." "Yeah, it's Field
| Day. I'm just here for the week ahead and thought I'd come play
| radio with you guys." "...and you're not a member?")
|
| Some club in DC/Arlington was pretty awful too. Again, there
| for work. Two old timers took turns mansplaining ham radio to
| me most of my time there. Nevermind I was a 30-something dude
| and with-code Extra. I was on their "get on the air" station
| doing CW and they kept talking at me while I had headphones on
| copying callsigns and listening for a break in the pileup.
|
| These days I just don't even both going out because I've been
| disappointed so many times. Maybe I'll give it a go this
| evening to yet another new club's setup and see what new form
| of disappointment awaits.
| howard941 wrote:
| Should you venture out expecting disappointment I think
| you'll be more likely to find it. I hope you find a better
| group and things go better than those bad experiences you had
| before.
| drmpeg wrote:
| Back in the early 90's, I worked with some guys that were in the
| San Jose State radio club, W6YL. Although Field Day is not a
| contest, these guys really really wanted to finish in the top 10
| for class 2A.
|
| They found out that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite station and
| begged me and my buddy to operate with them (there's bonus points
| for a satellite contact). So my buddy and I were "hired guns". We
| had never attended San Jose State and were not members of the
| club.
|
| These guys were definitely serious. We operated from a huge ranch
| in the Sunol hills and they erected wire beams for 80 and 40
| meters. They did finish in the top 10 the two years my buddy and
| I participated.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > They found out that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite station
|
| Personally, or you had access to one? I am a hobbyist and
| amateur, so I don't know how significant this is, but I want to
| learn!
| drmpeg wrote:
| I had the equipment. 2-meter SSB/CW receiver, 70cm SSB/CW
| transmitter, large 2-meter and 70cm yagi antennas and an
| azimuth/elevation rotator.
|
| Oscar 10 and 13 were amateur satellites in HEO (Molniya)
| orbit. They were super fun to operate since the passes lasted
| for hours.
| epcoa wrote:
| > Although Field Day is not a contest, these guys really really
| wanted to finish in the top 10 for class 2A.
|
| That's literally a contest. If the scoring was private maybe
| I'd agree.
|
| Field Day may serve other purposes too, but it's a contest, if
| not purely so.
| drmpeg wrote:
| It's certainly a contest for some groups, but I can't say
| what percentage that would be. There's many many groups that
| aren't even remotely competitive and for some groups it's
| primarily a social event.
|
| When we participated with W6YL, we had our own tent, food,
| and mass quantities of beer. Aside from folks stopping by the
| tent out of curiosity, it was not a social event at all.
|
| One guy who was a master CW operator wanted to see how the
| satellite worked. We hooked his keyer up to the 70cm
| transmitter and let him go at it. At first, hearing his own
| signal after a 250 millisecond delay confused him a little
| but I turned the receive audio down to help him out.
| sciencesama wrote:
| Just made two contacts and it is fun !!
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(page generated 2025-06-28 23:00 UTC)