[ARC5] Field Day musings...

Tue Jun 25 07:41:13 EDT 2013

2005 was the first year in a long time that I operated Field Day.  I was invited to work with an out of town club.  I said I wanted to operate CW.

They acted like they thought this might be interesting to watch.  No one in that group, at least those at the FD site, even knew CW.

I drew a lot of gawkers who could not believe anyone could "fly" on a bug at 35-40 wpm.  They really should have spent their time OPERATING instead, because I must have embarrassed the scheiss out of them by racking up more than half their total FD QSOs on 80 CW in an all nighter, working everyone from Timbuktoo to BFE.  Something like 47 states, several DX stations in Europe and a couple of maritime mobiles, one on a vintage WW2 ship off the east coast.

And I did my own logging, ON PAPER, because they had no CW-savvy operator who could assist me.  And my log was legible too.

Next year I was invited back.  I informed them that I would not only work CW again but would be bringing a vintage rig, and took a 50 watt transmitter from circa 1955 and not one, but two receivers full of light emitting, glass enclosed field effect transistors.... 

This drew a lot of dumb looks, snickers, pointing, and snide remarks like "Oh look, a boatanchor station...."  Duuuuhhhh. 

They set me up as their GOTA station (!!!), which meant of course that I had to use a separate call sign.... maybe so that I wouldn't embarrass them again....?

But, when the Red Cross, Boy Scouts and all the officialdumb visitors from "th' city" came out, where did they congregate?  Where the REAL radios were.  They couldn't give a flyin' flip about that other stuff.  And, it was CW, not donald duck and digitalis, that interested them the most.

Touchee!

I haven't operated with that crowd again since.

SKILL is what it takes, folks.  All the "hy-tech" in the world is no substitute.  Without SKILL, you have nothing.

You get SKILL by DOING.

73

Mike
W4DSE

--- On Mon, 6/24/13, Dennis Monticelli <dennis.monticelli at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Dennis Monticelli <dennis.monticelli at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ARC5] Field Day musings...
> To: "Mark K3MSB" <mark.k3msb at gmail.com>
> Cc: "ARC5" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Monday, June 24, 2013, 2:49 PM
> Our little four man FD group decided
> >10 years back to hold a vintage FD on
> our own.  We transported an R-390A and Viking II to our
> favorite 7000'
> campsite and flailed away on CW for the entire 24
> hours.  It was definitely
> a lot of fun.
> 
> Dennis AE6C
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Mark K3MSB <mark.k3msb at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > It's all about keeping the QSO rate high.
> >
> > I brought my HT-37 and SX-111 to FD one year.  Got
> pretty much the same
> > response,  but being a club member I did operate
> it for a while.
> >
> > 73 Mark K3MSB
> >
> > Sent from my Android phone
> > On Jun 24, 2013 12:12 PM, "Kenneth G. Gordon" <kgordon2006 at frontier.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > So, I went out to the local fairgrounds Saturday
> to see what the local
> > ham
> > > club was doing for FD.
> > >
> > > I took along my AN/GRC-109, a large box of
> crystals, my bug and my
> > > phones since it had been hinted at to me
> personally that I might be able
> > to
> > > operate the stuff for a bit.
> > >
> > > I laid the '109 out on a table when offered the
> opportunity. Several
> > > commented on it: "Gee, what a neat antique." etc,
> including the fellow
> > with
> > > whom I had been discussing this gear, and who had
> used one like it in
> > Laos
> > > "back then".
> > >
> > > I then asked if I could operate a little
> CW....receiving a blank stare in
> > > return.
> > >
> > > I finally left in disgust, went home, fired up the
> generator, and
> > operated
> > > as a
> > > 1E station for a bit: 89 minutes to be exact, and
> made 54 contacts,
> > finally
> > > having to turn the genny off since we had guests
> coming for dinner that
> > > night.
> > >
> > > Listening on the bands for the local group's
> signals proved to me that
> > they
> > > weren't particularly active, apparently making one
> contact about every 15
> > > minutes or so.
> > >
> > > I am more than a little ticked off.
> > >
> > > I may work towards finding some like-minded folks
> here in the area (so
> > > far, I
> > > know only one) who would join me in an effort to
> operate together next
> > year
> > > using our "antique" gear.
> > >
> > > Kenneth G. Gordon W7EKB
> > >
> > > "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up
> anyway."--- John
> > Wayne
> > >
> > >
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