Every summer, many US hams participate in Field Day, a 24 hour period where they go to a location that is not typically a radio station, set up emergency/temporary radios, antennas, and power supplies, and then try to log as many contacts as possible. The purpose of Field Day is to practice operating under emergency conditions. It's like a camping trip with a radio contest thrown in.
In Ohio I often participated in Field Day with my friend Bill at the USS Cod WWII submarine. W8COD is the boat's callsign, and we would set up in the yard out front with car batteries and long wire antennas. At night, if we took a sleep shift, we slept onboard. It was a lot of fun.
Since moving to Nebraska, I have not joined any clubs or been to any Field Day operations. I have thought about it every June as Field Day weekend approached, but never got off my butt. This year, that was gonna change. I emailed a bunch of clubs in the area asking where they'd be setting up. I wanted to visit a few sites and meet different clubs. Well, I was on-call that weekend, so I didn't get to make my whirlwind tour, but I did get to visit the local club. They were set up at a public park in Murray, a short drive from home. I got to spend a couple hours meeting some of the club members, make introductions, and chit chat for a while.
Here are a couple pictures:
Talk about a "Ham Shack!" On the left of the pavilion you can see the vertical antenna.
In prior years, one of the members would climb to the top andaffix a rope to the hand-rail up there. Then various wire antennas could be hung from that rope. I would like to have seen the performance of those antennas!
Roger brought a Yeasu FT-817 5 watt QRP radio.
Some of the club members stayed overnight. I had to leave to tend to work, but it was nice to get out and meet some radio guys.
Thanks for reading es 73!
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