[HN Gopher] 2025 ARRL Field Day
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2025 ARRL Field Day
Author : rookderby
Score : 128 points
Date : 2025-06-28 19:04 UTC (1 days 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.
| tonymet wrote:
| I like field day field ops that's fine , just not trying to
| contact during big field days
| 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.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Did you have to do anything nonstandard to assist the team?
| I find the whole hobby rather interesting and want to get
| more into it. My grandparents' old C/Ku band receiver and
| giant dish led to discovering some trunk feeds and started
| my curiosity, but most of my radio work has involved WiFi.
| With WiFi, the use case and radios available without a
| license somewhat limited what I even thought to try.
|
| I guess I'll see if there is a local club I can join to
| meet some folks and see what they're doing.
|
| What did you normally use the equipment for, since you
| weren't in the club prior to your contact with the record
| breaking group?
| drmpeg wrote:
| I used the equipment for the same reason, to communicate
| through the Oscar 10 and 13 satellites at home. Oscar 10
| was launched in 1983. At that time, I was living in an
| apartment. I strung up some smaller yagis on the balcony
| that fortunately faced towards the southwest. I was able
| to use some, but not all passes of the satellite.
|
| I also used the equipment for terrestrial communications.
| When I started renting a house, I put up a large yagi for
| 2-meters. With SSB, you can make contacts out to about
| 300-400 miles. Enough for contacts between Silicon Valley
| and the Los Angeles area.
|
| I also made much longer distance contacts with that
| station with special propagation modes. Meteor bounce,
| sporadic-E and trans-Pacific (Hawaii) ducting (about 2400
| miles).
|
| For the 70cm equipment, I participated in VHF/UHF
| contests with multioperator groups. This is where we'd go
| to mountain tops to operate. I was lucky enough to
| operate from Mt. Pinos a couple of times before ham radio
| was banned from there. Mt. Pinos is a 8847 ft. mountain
| at the southern end of the central valley and by far the
| best location for VHF/UHF operating.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinos
|
| Of course, this was in the 80's and 90's. Nowadays, weak
| signal VHF/UHF may not be very active where you live.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > For the 70cm equipment, I participated in VHF/UHF
| contests with multioperator groups.
|
| Why?
|
| This is a genuine question! I know I am genuinely
| uninteresting because I don't know why I would do this if
| there wasn't already a built-in audience. This seems
| adjacent to shouting into the void if one doesn't already
| know that there are listeners/receivers. Why does anyone
| do this at all?
| drmpeg wrote:
| It's an organized event, just like Field Day. The most
| popular one is in June, since sporadic-E propagation on
| 50 MHz is available.
|
| https://www.arrl.org/june-vhf
|
| To be honest, I've pretty much phased out on conventional
| ham radio. The last time I was out in the field was 2010.
| These days all my ham radio activity is for SDR (Software
| Defined Radio) development testing. Here's my Github.
|
| https://github.com/drmpeg
|
| And here's a demo video of my open source ATSC 3.0
| transmitter.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLn5L-k4EPA
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Thank you for your response.
|
| I am not active much on GH, but mine is:
|
| https://github.com/aspenmayer
|
| > And here's a demo video of my open source ATSC 3.0
| transmitter.
|
| Wasn't yet following you on Twitter, but _was_ already
| subbed on YT. I see you, but I don't recognize you. I
| will review my history to appreciate further your
| contribution(s) to my present state.
|
| I am going to DEF CON. I hope to see you there, but if
| not this year, perhaps sometime soon irl or online.
|
| To circle back, how did this happen:
|
| > > They found out that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite
| station
|
| Specifically, how did they know
|
| > that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite station
|
| ?
|
| Are there people fox hunting recreationally, all the
| time?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_direction_fin
| din...
| firesteelrain wrote:
| You can work the ISS fairly easily from your backyard with an
| Elk or Arrow antenna and full duplex radio like D72A. I have
| worked astronauts. During COVID, we all used to get on the
| satellites as part of late night passes at like 1am and make
| contacts with each other.
| grendelt wrote:
| You don't even need full duplex. Just an HT that will do
| "split".
| firesteelrain wrote:
| No, you need FD to hear yourself. Anyone who does this
| every day will tell you FD is the only way. Otherwise you
| are stepping on people
| 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.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| That's like saying POTA is a contest which it isn't
| sciencesama wrote:
| Just made two contacts and it is fun !!
| nlh wrote:
| If I may wax nostalgic for a moment:
|
| I got my original Novice license in 1990 I think (age 12). I was
| SO excited to participate in my local club's Field Day outing -
| but it was a nail biter for my physical license to arrive in the
| mail in time.
|
| I'd somehow gotten the word from the FCC that my license was
| issued and I got my call sign (KB2NDR) but I was so worried it
| wouldn't get to my house in time for the weekend (and it didn't!)
| - but the club president was super chill and said "I trust ya" so
| he let me participate and I still remember every minute of that
| weekend to this day.
|
| It was my first full-fledged ham event (my first all-nighter
| too), sitting in the tents working on HF rigs I could only dream
| of affording at 3am with guys chain smoking cigars. They were
| probably chuffed at this nerdy 12 y/o who wanted to play along
| (minus the smoking bit).
|
| "...CQ Field Day CQ Field Day this is K2-Zed-O, K2-Zulu-Oscar..."
|
| (That weekend launched my short intensity but long lived ham
| life. Leveled up to Extra and I still have K2KD active today but
| haven't touched a radio in years)
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| KA2PLF, similar, 12 or so, which would be 82 or so. Novice
| required code and only allowed code at the time. Took part in a
| few field days from locations up in the mountains in upstate NY
| where they threw pipes into a lake for ground and strung huge
| dipoles in the trees.
| Aloha wrote:
| I got my ticket at 14 in 1996, which led me to a career in the
| LMR/Telecom world - I have few regrets, my job is close enough
| to my hobby that it never gets old. I did my extra on a lark
| without studying for it.
|
| I did end up getting a vanity 1x3 along the way, because my
| original call was awful, both over phonetics and spoken.
| nlh wrote:
| Awesome! I went KB2NDR -> AA2KT (because at the time AA was
| the hot new prefix for Advanced) and then when vanities came
| out I grabbed a 1x2 that I'd dreamed of getting had I been
| licensed in the 70s :)
| ericye16 wrote:
| What are some good ways to participate if you don't have an HF
| radio? (Alternatively, what's a good way to get into HF if you
| live in a small apartment)?
|
| (I already have my license)
| neepi wrote:
| Lurk on a web SDR and pick up "virtual QSOs" on that.
|
| HF in small apartment is very difficult.
| asnelt wrote:
| I live in a small apartment and do 20m using an attic antenna.
| Of course, I can't compete with big outdoor antennas. But from
| Scotland, SSB to mainland Europe and FT8 to the US or the
| Caribbean is not a problem.
|
| Even if you don't have access to an attic, there are antenna
| constructions that can work for apartments. Have a look at
| "ARRL's Small Antennas for Small Spaces" and RSGB's "Stealth
| Antennas" as starting points.
|
| Alternatively, you could consider a portable solution where you
| carry a small HF rig and some wire in a backpack. The Yaesu
| FT-857D is very popular for this as it's small, all bands, all
| modes and does 100W. If you search for "Yaesu FT-857D backpack"
| you will find many suggestions. It's not in production anymore
| but you might find it second hand. For Yaesu, other options
| include the FT-891 (no VHF/UHF) and the more bulky FT-991A.
| Icom has the IC-7100, which is also a little more bulky than
| the FT-857D.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| I haven't even been able to get an antenna into the air, it's
| been thunder and lightning the past 3 days at my QTH after about
| a week of heat and clear skies. schedules just never line up, ha!
| agent86 wrote:
| For anyone interested, ESPN has a HAM Radio club - WE1SPN[1] -
| and they are live streaming some of their Field Day operations on
| YouTube[2]. They're not operating overnight, but should be back
| in the morning eastern US time. If you'd like to make contact the
| operators are actively monitoring the chat.
|
| [1] - https://we1spn.org/
|
| [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZxmubVjd0
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(page generated 2025-06-29 23:01 UTC)