[ARC5] Field Day musings...

[Mike Everette]

I saw some old disc recordings on eBay a couple of years back, of Field Day in the late 1940s -- 1949 perhaps.  I'll bet that would've been interesting listening.

One thing I remember from back-in-the-day was how the bands would be absolutely dead quiet up until the stroke of 4 pm Eastern time, which in the early 60s was the universal starting moment... then, BOOM!  It was absolute BEDLAM!

My first FD was soon after getting my General in 1962 (WA4DLF).  A couple of friends and I decided to set up using a tent in a vacant lot adjacent to my house, which since it had an actual different address let us qualify as "portable."  We did pull power from the commercial mains though, using something like 200 feet of Number 14 extension cord (two wire).  We loaded an 80 meter ARC-5 into a long wire antenna.  In about 3 hours we managed to make 10 contacts.  Then we had visitors, a couple of folks from the local club whom we'd just worked on the air, who invited us to come operate with them; they had set up at the county fairgrounds in the cow barn (pee-YEW!).  Now, THAT was a REAL Field Day.  There were at least 6 stations set up.  I got plunked down in front of an HT-32 and SX-101 and told, "Operate 80 CW."  WOW!  I stayed up all night.  The guy behind me was on 75 SSB with a CE 200V and some exotic receiver that I can't recall... then after the sun
 rose and 80 died, I went to work on 20 SSB with a B&W transmitter and sideband adaptor, and a Drake 1-A receiver which at the time didn't impress me because it wasn't good for AM (!!).  I finished the day on 10 meter AM with a Johnson Ranger and Halli SX-99, working all over the place making QSOs like shootin' fish in a barrel, until they pulled the power down right in the middle of a contact at 4 pm on Sunday.

Now that was a weekend to remember!

73

Mike
W4DSE

--- On Tue, 6/25/13, David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> From: David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>
> Subject: Re: [ARC5] Field Day musings...
> To: "ARC-5 List" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Tuesday, June 25, 2013, 8:12 AM
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> > 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....
> > ... SKILL is what it takes, folks.  All the
> "hy-tech" in the world is no substitute.  Without
> SKILL, you have nothing.
> 
> Hear Hear, Mike!  
> I did some listening during this last Field Day.
> and heard the general level of activity.  When people
> complain about all the "activity and noise" from
> "so many stations" today, it's amusing.
> These guys give up, gripping about "hopeless QRM" if one or
> two other stations happen to be in their passband. 
> Pathetic.
> I'd chuckle but it makes me feel more sad than amused. 
> Today's "plastic OPs" don't have the.... very... first...
> clue.
> I wish to God I had some recordings of Field Day in, say,
> 1969 or 1973.   If a band was open it was a
> solid wall of signals from one end to the other.  We
> didn't have computers.  We didn't have digital
> filters.
> Most of us didn't even have passband tuning and I never once
> saw a CW OP using a narrow filter;
> you'd miss too many calls doing that.
> They used their skills and their brains and had
> a great time.   I could tell you some really
> funny stories.
> Like the time in Vegas when the ball park grounds
> keepers told us the sprinklers had been turned-off
> for the night.....
> 
> 73 Dave AB5S
> 
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