[TowerTalk] Wire Antennas Only For Field Day

[Grant Saviers]

A good point, "it's not a contest", but every club has different goals 
as does the ARRL beyond "emergency test".  Our primary club goals are 
increased participation, learning, and promoting ham radio.  So 
operators range from coaching newly minted, never spoke on HF to hard 
core contesters, one cw and one ssb stations plus a GOTA and VHF/UHF.  
Every operator has a different style/goal & skill/experience level.

However, making it really hard for newbies with QRP or poor antennas, 
won't bring many back when they find just the QRM and logging challenges 
pretty daunting.   It is easy to forget how well experienced ops hear, 
run short and fast Q's, and multitask the logging work vs newbies.

So, keep the "rules" as they are is my vote.  Keep FD a big tent for ham 
radio.

And FD is a "gateway drug" to real contesting for some newbies I've 
coached. :-)

Grant KZ1W



On 7/5/2017 13:29 PM, Tom Osborne wrote:
> Nothing to level.  It's not a contest :-)  74
> Tom W7WHY
>
> On Jul 5, 2017 11:07 AM, "Russ Dearmore via TowerTalk" <
> towertalk at contesting.com> wrote:
>
>>    I was wondering if in the past FD was regulated to only wire antennas.
>> It would seem to be a way to level the playing field for all participants
>> and add a stealthy aspect to the weekend.  There's something about aluminum
>> beams and even verticals that seem a bit out of place when considering that
>> we are practicing for dire emergency situations.  Although I don't see us
>> being invaded anytime soon (Hi) the added consideration would give a bit
>> more meaning to the exercise...  Possibly an additional weekend contest
>> with these points emphasized or additional points awarded in some manner to
>> the existing field day.  (I haven't read all the rules on FD so please
>> forgive me if those rules already exist).  By the way I'm not suggesting
>> that anyone is doing anything improper by using aluminum.     A fun sprint
>> type contest would be to use battery powered radios like military models
>> until all batteries expired.  Just some ideas to challenge us to improve
>> our sport...   Russ  K5ZZR
>>
>>
>>
>>        From: "towertalk-request at contesting.com" <
>>
..snip..