[TenTec] Field Day Drill

[Kris Merschrod]

Stephen,

Do not give up on field day - go with the family, do the BBQ, bring a 
comfortable chair and just help out in the fresh air.

Or pick the odd band w/o much action and enjoy a rag chew.  I took 160 one 
year - not much action but we shot the breeze.

It is a chance for an outing with the crowd.
73,

Kris KM2KM
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Roberts" <steverob at shoreham.net>
To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 8:46 AM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Field Day Drill


> Hi Folks,
>
> I've been following this thread and thought I'd chime in. As a new ham (4 
> months now) and a 100% CW op, I didn't really know what to expect when I 
> went to my first field day this year. The old salts of our club had spent 
> the day before setting up stations and had everything ready to go when I 
> arrived at the site. It was all very organized and pretty impressive. The 
> 3 CW ops (myself included) were set up in a member's RV which proved to be 
> a really excellent place to spend field day.
>
> To backtrack a bit, before the event, I asked one of the guys just what 
> the purpose of fleid day was and he said "To test our emergency 
> communications system and train other hams to do the same". Well, I can 
> tell you that was NOT what happened. Like many have said, the whole event 
> was set up and run as a contest. The guys I worked CW with have been at it 
> for many decades...not just a couple of months, so it was pretty daunting 
> to sit down at a strange radio with a stranger's keyer and have them say 
> "Well, the rig is set at 26wpm if that's ok with you".
>
> I wrote out the typical exchange on a cheat sheet and sat down and had a 
> go at it. I was a bit tentative at first, but since the exchanges weren't 
> conversational (too bad really) and stuck to a pretty strict format, I got 
> into the swing of things pretty quickly. The first hour I was op, I got 25 
> contacts, the second hour the band (40m) fell apart and I got about 15 
> contacts.
>
> For me the actual ops were boring and pointless. I see it as a wasted 
> opportunity. For a new guy, it was clear that while folks were operating 
> you certainly didn't want to ask them a question or interrupt them for 
> fear of lowering the Q count.
>
> I'm undecided whether I'll do it again next year. I might just get 
> together with a couple friends on a mountain top somewhere and have my own 
> field day.
>
> I didn't get into ham radio to be a competitor and I'm not keen on the 
> idea of being a human memory keyer. It just doesn't fit into my idea of 
> what being a ham is all about.
>
> Best 73,
> Steve
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Steve Roberts-W1SFR
> Sudbury, VT
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jun 27, 2012, at 8:28 AM, chacuff wrote:
>
>> Changed the Subject line...hope no one minds.
>>
>> Funny that should come up.  We had a visitor to our site that asked the 
>> same
>> question of all of our radio gear...
>>
>> And yes if there were an EMP event you could throw all your transceivers 
>> in
>> the trash as well as the generators with solid state regulators and 
>> engine
>> controls, your solar power system regulators, all your computers and 
>> network
>> gear and the car you arrived in.
>>
>> Only answer I had for him was I would get back to the house and pull out 
>> my
>> R390A/SP-600 and my Johnson Ranger (not to mention my AR-15 and a side 
>> arm)
>> and start stringing a bunch of batteries together in hopes of getting a
>> signal out to some far flung place that had not been effected.
>>
>> I don't think anyone drills for a doomsday event.  Probably should 
>> though...
>>
>> Would be a sad end to my Ten-Tec gear though...
>>
>> Cecil
>> K5DL
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Richards" <jruing at ameritech.net>
>>> Stuart...  a serious question here...   Will all of that, especially the
>>> MESH system, work after a big EMI pulse type incident?  If  not, what
>>> would be the fallback plan?
>>
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