[PPRAANet] field day info

[Douglas Hagerman]

I successfully uploaded my Field Day submission on the ARRL site. Hopefully my 290 points will push PPRAA over the top!  :-)

This was my first attempt at a field day entry. I am not very active on HF but am trying to get better at it. I am still at the “OMG he is sending me Morse Code!!!” phase. There are a lot of considerations: How do you fill out a dupe sheet? How do you keep from getting sunburned? How dark do the clouds have to be before you take down your antenna? Does this really go on all night long???

While filling in the online entry submission form, I ran into an interesting question regarding “natural” (also called “alternative”) power. A few months ago I joined the Colorado Springs Utilities Green Power plan, which is where you can sign up to get up to 100% of your electricity from the CSU solar panel farms. Obviously the electricity still comes to your house from the grid, and obviously there is a question of where does it come from at night! But if the point of having a 100 point bonus on your Field Day score for natural power is to encourage the deployment of solar and wind power, then I would argue that the Green Power plan counts. I asked the ARRL for clarification on this because the rules are unclear.

73  :-)

Doug, w0uhu.