[Fists] A Proposal for Next Field Day

[Dan KB6NU]

On our club e-mail list, we've been doing a post-mortem on our Field Day
operations. One of the cool things was our "Get On The Air" (GOTA) station.
At the GOTA station, a dozen different people made their first HF contacts,
including a number of Technicians. It's spurred several of them to start
working on their code so that they can upgrade to General.

Another thing that we noted is that while we made many more contacts this
year, we scored just a few more points than last year. The reason, of
course, is that all those extra contacts were SSB contacts, not CW contacts.
We ran two phone stations, but only one CW station.

Next year, I'm proposing that we go to 4A and run two CW stations. I'm going
to call the second CW station the "Get On CW" (GOCW) station. At this
station, we're not going to care how fast someone operates or how many
contacts he or she makes. Instead, the idea is to show them how much fun it
can be to work CW. I plan to be around as much as possible to demonstrate
CW, coach those that want to operate, and help them make contacts (by
logging for them and helping them copy the fast stations).

In addition, I'm going to talk to those guys who keep talking about working
CW, but never seem to find the time or the energy to do so and encourage
them strongly (i.e. twist arms, if necessary) to operate for an hour or two.
The idea being to get them over the hump as far as CW goes. I might even
give out awards to the operator who made the most contacts, the operator who
showed the most courage in sitting down and operating, etc.

I'd like to see this become a nation-wide FISTS effort. We can even
congregate around the Fists frequencies so that the GOCW stations can work
one another without having to deal with the contest twits who are rude to
slower operators.

WATSA OMS?

73!

Dan KB6NU
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President, ARROW Comm. Assn. (www.w8pgw.org)
ARRL MI Section Affiliated Club Coordinator
CW Geek (FISTS #9342)
Read my ham radio blog at www.blurty.com/~kb6nu