[GCARC] Field Day Operating Strategy

[Tony Starr]

To all band captains and their operators:

As a seasoned Field Day enthusiast, I have had the opportunity to try out a
variety of operating strategies over the years, but the best one so far has
been the one that the Old Salty Veteran and I stumbled upon almost four
decades ago. Without knowing anything about contest operation, we
discovered that we were far more productive and made many more contacts if
we simply just sat on a frequency and called CQ. This is called "running"
in contest lingo, as opposed to "searching and pouncing", which is tuning
around and looking for other stations who are calling CQ. Normally a
contester would run to fill his log with QSOs, and would search and pounce
to accumulate multipliers, but since there are no multipliers on Field Day,
we are much better off just calling CQ.

Another reason to call CQ is that we are a large, multi-station setup,
compared to the vast majority of FD participants, who are primarily smaller
groups with one or two transmitters, or even single operators, who are only
on one band at a time. If one of those smaller stations works W2MMD on 40
meters, and we give him a 7A report, he knows that when he switches to 80m,
20m, or any other band, chances are we will be on there for him to work. In
other words, he may be looking for us, and if we are busy tuning around
searching and pouncing, he might not ever hear us or work us, so the most
effective operating strategy for a large group like us is to call CQ as
much as possible, and try to hold our frequency for as long as we can. And
if we get pushed off that frequency, find another one and call CQ. Try it,
you might be surprised at how much action you can generate!

Looking forward to another GREAT Field Day at W2MMD. Don't you dare miss
it! 73 for now.

de K3TS