[Elecraft] Field Day in Oregon

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Kevin wrote:

What a stark contrast to my first Field Day in New Mexico where food and
talk was a very important part of FD.  This group is working toward learning
how to make a higher score.  In a few years I think they will perform that
aspect of FD better.  

-----------------------------

That's too bad. I've not been involved with a club field day since the mid
1980's. That FD was much like my first FDs in the 1950's. It was what today
we'd likely call a "Ham Tailgate Party". YL's and XYL's and kids were there
in abundance with loads of food (in the '50's men were *not* supposed to
know how to cook, other than burn something on the grill). Field Day was a
social time with everyone getting to know everyone else and their families
better and a little operating thrown in. The objective, such as it was, was
to make sure the club generator still worked and enough people knew enough
to pool their gear and get a station on the air from a field site in case
some great tragedy happened: probably an earthquake (that was in southern
California where we didn't remark about a shaking ground unless someone
reported there were whitecaps on the waves in his swimming pool). 

I don't recall ever seeing a score discussed in our club meetings.

Maybe field days today are better preparation for being ready to work in the
field in any mode in an emergency, but I bet we had more fun! 

I didn't make a single FD QSO this year. I was involved with meetings of our
local Community Emergency Response Team with most of the local residents. We
live in a community of about 100 homes with about 280 souls including the
kids. We are on the Oregon coast, a few hundred yards from the surf where
even mild tsunamis or even an especially bad winter storm with a heavy sea
surge could run up local creeks across  our only highway and cut us off from
nearby towns for days at a time. Radio plays a huge role in our emergency
planning. Almost everyone has a "Family Radio" hand-held that is used for
neighbors to check with each other to see if everyone's okay (only an idiot
steps out into forest land during heavy storms). Then there are us Hams: two
of us here. We link through RACES into the local VHF nets and, if that
doesn't work in this rugged terrain, I can round up contacts in almost every
coastal town on 80/40 SSB to get messages to the emergency centers or the US
Coast Guard (we have landing areas for Coast Guard helicopters who can come
into evacuate injured or drop supplies if the worst happens). 

So, I guess, without a single contact, I was participating in the spirit of
FD this year. 

But the food was better with all those XYL's and YL's running around with
laden platters. 

Shoot, for this young teenager back in the 50's, some of the YL's were far
more interesting than the food...

Ron AC7AC