[TenTec] Field Day Drill

[Jim Lowman]

Steve, you encountered my kind of Field Day.  It's definitely not for 
everyone.

First of all, congratulations on being a 100% CW op, especially as a 
newer ham where CW is not a requirement for the license.
If you've been in for only four months and can handle 26-wpm exchanges, 
my congratulations.

Very possibly these OTs have worked Field Day together for years and 
have found what works for them.
When I first moved to this area I met Leon (W6HAL, SK) at work.  I 
joined him and two others of similar age and experience to work 
10-15-20m CW on Field Day.
There was always a natural synchronicity between us.  We would alternate 
between operating and logging, and it was like two of us operating from 
the same brain, if you will.

Anyway, sorry that your first FD wasn't to your liking.  Maybe by next 
year you can find a few like-minded individuals and run your own FD.  
Nothing wrong with a casual operation if everyone is having fun and 
learning from the experience.
Certainly you don't want it to be so uninteresting to you that you're 
willing to walk away from the event altogether.

Good luck next year.  As you said, you can always work a solo FD, even 
as a class-E home station.

73 de Jim - AD6CW

On 6/27/2012 5:46 AM, Stephen Roberts wrote:
> 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
>