[K3PZN-List] FD 2008 thoughts

[Andy Leeds]

I've been pondering this for a while, and mostly for the sake of 
discussion I'd like to suggest that we consider a class F operation. The 
main advantage to this would be that we could spend our energy operating 
and not setting up and cleaning up. Antennas can be erected weeks (or 
months) in advance and stay up until convenient to take down. I've done 
it both ways over the years and have come to prefer the fixed station 
operation due to the creature comforts (A/C, no mosquitoes, flush 
toilets, sturdy building not prone to flooding) and that I can spend 
more time operating since setup is mostly done in advance. Right now I'm 
in a situation where I don't have HF at home so I like to get the 
operating time in when I can.

Under the Class F rules for 2007 the FTC qualifies as a " facility 
established by a Federal, State, County, City or other Civil Government, 
agency..." we could claim all bonus and other points associated with 
class A and only have to test the generator not run it all 24 hours so 
its easier on the budget. A 2F operation would give us 2 primary TX plus 
a GOTA station, VHF/UHF, etc. This style of operation should be largely 
a contest type operation. I can see the need for 5 captains in this 
style: 2 primary stations, GOTA, bonus points, food. Operationally the 
two primary station would need to coordinate band and mode, but that 
usually takes care of itself with one station for digital modes, and one 
for SSB (but as long as they don't end up on the same band/mode at the 
same time that's just a suggestion). Mainly a column to select your 
preferred mode on  the operator sheet would be a 90% solution.

The major draw back is that we don't get the experience of setting up a 
lot of stations and playing with all the different modes etc.

Looking at this from an emergency communication standpoint - my 
experience through 5 hurricanes (or was it six, I've lost count) was 
that all the staffed locations set up on VHF for local comms, the HF 
relay was done by someone at a home station (there were at least 2x as 
many people on the nets from home as there were from shelters etc). The 
only field day type setup we did was for a team that went out of county 
- they took HF with them and setup a schedule with home each evening for 
status as we had others ready to go if they needed something. They just 
took a simple dipole and a mobile (screwdriver) antenna since we had 
large fixed stations at home to make up the difference. All this leads 
to my opinion that the ability to erect 40' towers and multiple HF 
stations in a field is of little operational use these days.

Andy