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ICOM radios. Here we go, welcome to Hamtop Life
Call in, let's talk, Neil's your guy Hamtop Life,
here we go on Hamtop Good evening, everyone.
This is HamTalk Live episode number 170. It's
our annual field day Q &A 2019 recorded live
on Thursday, June 20th 2019. I'm your host Neil
Rapp WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to another
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined
by Bart Jahnke W9JJ and Paul Bork N1SFE. and
they are from ARRL and we'll be talking about
field day tonight. We'll take as many questions
as we can and we will take your calls live. We'll
talk a little bit and then we'll take your calls
live and we're already getting some tweets so
if you have something you want to go ahead and
tweet it to us. We'll check that out here in
a little bit. Last week here on the show, Sterling
Mann in zero SSC was here to talk about the youth
contesting program and Yoda region too. And if
you missed that show, you can listen anytime
at ham talk live .com or your favorite podcast
app or YouTube, or you can catch the rebroadcast
on WTW 50 85 a .m. Saturday evenings at about
630 p .m. Eastern Time. So get those field day
questions ready to go. If you're listening to
us live on Thursday night, you can give us a
call after the interview. Let me give you that
phone number so you have it handy. It's not time
to call just yet, but let me give you the phone
number. It's 812 -650 -9556. Again, 812 -650
-9556. Or again, you can tweet us. at HamTalk
Live on Twitter and we will fit in as many questions
and answers as we can tonight. So I'll be back
with Bart and Paul right after this word from
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case for holding dead batteries. Now, here's
Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live. Welcome back
to HamTalk Live. It's field day Q &A tonight
and thanks to iCom America for helping bring
you the show each and every week. We're here
Thursday nights at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right
here at HamTalk Live. Our guest this evening
Bart Yonkey W9JJ is the ARRL radio sport and
field services manager Bart is served in that
role since March and was the contest branch manager
from January 2016 until his recent promotion.
But it's no stranger to ARRL headquarters. Bart
started working at ARRL in 1985 as the editor
of the ARRL repeater directory. And from 1989
to 2005, He was the volunteer exam coordinator
manager, and he took a few years hiatus, spending
10 years working in the customer service, manufacturing,
sales, and support, and information technology
fields in the Midwest and on the East Coast,
and now he is back. And also joining us tonight,
ARRL contest program manager. manager Paul Bork
in one SFE. His appointment was just announced
earlier this week. Paul's been licensed since
1994 and like me he listened to distant AM broadcast
stations. as a young person and later developed
a career involving various aspects of broadcasting.
He started at a broadcast station at the University
of Hartford where the station's general manager
John Ramsey W1JNR pushed him to get his license.
He grew up in Newington and wanted the opportunity
to give back to the hobby and he wants to find
ways to get newer hams into contesting. and to
spell the idea that you need tons of equipment
to participate. So Bart, welcome back, and Paul,
welcome to HamTalk Live. Thanks for having us,
Neil. Well, I really enjoy these shows because
we get into some very unusual questions sometimes
on these shows and kind of... kinda stretches
the brain a little bit to try to figure out uh...
just how all these things fit into the rules
for field day so we'll be uh... talking about
that but first of all Bart why don't you introduce
uh... Paul to everyone and and paul i think you've
been on the week for are on the job for a week
now is that right uh... yeah it's uh... the end
of my second week alright well Bart why don't
you go ahead and uh... Thanks, Neil. We're all
doubling. We need a curtsy cone. There's a push
to talk when you need it. Exactly. All right.
Thanks, Mark. Go ahead. Thanks for having both
of us on, Neil, and it's great to be able to
join you and have Paul on for his first opportunity
as the contest program manager. It's been great
here over the last almost two weeks with him,
and he's come up to speed really fast, brought
a lot of knowledge. in administering programs
like this to ARRL. So it's been working out good.
He's quick study. And he's been involved in contesting
for a couple of decades. Maybe not the aggressive
knockdown drag out guy, but with a sort of ever
present in the various aspects. So it's good
to have him aboard. And we've been doing some
great progress over the last couple of weeks.
Paul, anything you want to... Say about the about
the new job and say to the folks listening here
tonight well, I I feel like Working at the ARL
is like coming home now for two reasons one is
you know as you've mentioned before I grew up
And you know so being back in Newington's always
kind of nice But I feel I feel like I've definitely
found me a place where I'm surrounded by people
that share the same passion in amateur radio
that I do. Yeah it's a neat place to work and
it has its challenges and you've been gone for
two weeks so you may not have seen them all yet
but I think it's great that you're a hometown
kid and you're ready to go for this and make
it even better. So I wish you all the best success
there. And I look forward to being back out there.
It's been 10 years and I get to come back out
this summer for Teachers Institute. So I'll be
headed out that way here before too many weeks
go by. Well, we want to give everybody a chance
to ask those field day questions, but we probably
should address the obvious first. So, let's go
over any changes that happened. I was downloading,
I was joking around yesterday that I was working
SO3L, Single Op 3 Laptops. I had all the laptops
going at once trying to get all the software
updated and all the forms downloaded and everything.
I noticed that the latest revision to the The
field day packet was, I think, five days ago
or so. So bring us up to date on any changes.
I know there's not a lot, but what are the changes
that have happened since last year? Paul, you
want to take a stab at it? Well, from what I
can see here, the rules are pretty much straightforward
and the same. There are changes. Certain you
know a lot of people are asking me questions
about FTA things about like about that. I mean
this will be do have a Lot of a lot of people
asking questions. You know my phone's been ringing
pretty much all week Would you know the main
question I've been seeing is people asking about
is this mode? Acceptable was that mode acceptable
and the answer is yes pretty much But as far
as rules go I don't see any major changes. I
don't know if you want to address that in more
detail, Bart. So the two things that I would
say address Neil's observation of the page being
updated and the more prevalent thing is, first
of all, the biggest item being that FT8 is supported
now in the field day exchange as part of WSJTX.
So it by and large did not, wasn't in a position
to be supported last year. The exchange was an
afterthought at best. It could only be done through,
I believe it was TX6, the 13 karat free character
field. This year is actually built into the software.
If you chose contest mode and then field day
as an option, you can put in your class and your
section and the system is set up and ready to
go as a field day exchange. protocol. So that's
a wondrous thing. There's going to be a lot of
activity this year. I think it's going to bring
a new level of excitement for maybe the newcomers
who are more digitally oriented. The other thing
people might say is, you know, what about FT4?
And as you probably read in the media, FT4 is
essentially disabled at the present time. I mean,
people can still use it, but Basically, the current
release is set in such a way that it wouldn't
be able to be used for field day. And the idea
was that, hey, we're just now having the opportunity
to use FTA, let's not confuse things with FT4
this field day. But I'm sure next year that that
will be a primary mode for people and they'll
probably find that as the go -to mode for digital
communications in a year. The other thing was
that we've been working on the web app for uploading
field day results in recent previous years. That
was basically a summary form that was populated
and then you had to figure out how to get us
your bonus documentation, et cetera. The new
summary, excuse me, the new web app is designed
around not only having the summary information,
but for every bonus you select that requires
documentation, it has a bit bucket, a link that
says attach your file. And so in essence, it's
a one stop shop for everything you need to do
for your field day submission. If you're not
quite ready with your bonus documents, you can
come back into your record at a later time and
add them. And it'll actually point out to you
that based on what you've presently supplied,
your estimated score is X amount. And when you
actually finish your bonus documents, if you
hadn't done so initially, it would indicate the
additional points that would be available to
you once you supply those documents. The idea
being that when you have almost 3 ,000 groups
participating as you can... almost imagine over
the decades, the paper records and pieces of
electronic combination submissions is a significant
amount of work. And now that the technology exists
and people have the ability to take photos of
their supporting documents or scan them or to
PDF certain things. take screenshots, any and
all of those documents can be simply uploaded
as an attachment. So a lot of the updates, Neil,
that you were seeing, and if you look again,
you'll see a couple more updated files today,
is all focused on that web submission tool. Okay,
so no big rule changes here, but yeah, FT8 was
kind of interesting because I know here and I
know this was the case in a lot of places. We
had an FT8 station basically and we logged over
200 contacts and not a one of them had a field
day exchange in it so they didn't count. And
so that's the software set up you still got to
remember to go in there and do that but you got
to make sure that that exchange is there but
I think that will be a big hit this year. It's
going to be a phenomenal deal. Yeah, and we were
lucky enough to pull off a win. We won our class
last year. We are the winners of Class 13A. Of
course, we were the only entry in class 13A,
but we did it. We pulled it off. So we're not
going to do that this year, but. I was going
to say, if you would have told us that in advance,
we could have done a data analysis to see how
steep the competition was for you. Yeah. So yeah,
we're going to do the normal thing this year,
but we ran 13A and we had a lot of fun. And that's
one of the things that I know you're going to
talk about is do what's fun. And so we'll talk
about that. Well, let's talk a little bit about
last year. How did last year go? Do you have
some numbers maybe that you can share about how
last year went? Sure. Go ahead, Paul. All right,
well last year we had over 1 .18 million contacts
logged during field day. And so that was pretty
impressive. I think it was down a little bit
from the year before. The total of more than
35 ,000 participants. So that was a good event.
I think we had some good activity and some good
excitement. And from reports a lot of people,
everyone was having fun. So that's what was really
important. And I don't know if you want to add
anything there, Bart. Well, we kind of look at
the overall participation. So with just over
a million contacts and really what amounts to
3 ,000 groups reporting their activity, like
any more of a competition event. you know, that
3 ,000 doesn't represent 100 % of the activity.
It's hard to measure for field day, but, you
know, it's probably be a reasonable expectation
to suggest that that's maybe anywhere from 60
to 75 % of the real numbers and, you know, the
true numbers and the number of overall participants
may be closer to four if not going on 5 ,000.
Participating call signs, if you will, that could
be groups or individuals. And of course, as people
saw in the December QST results, the breakdown
of modes was approximately 45 % in CW and 50
% in phone and the other 5 % was digital last
year. I'd expect to see that digital number probably
matching whatever CW and phone do this year,
just because it's the nature of the course that
we're heading down right now. And of course,
you know, we've got the other categories and
we can talk a little bit more about them, but
class A one and two participant groups with over
1200 entries, class, I'm sorry, class A with,
I should have read. Clarify that with three or
more participants as a club or non -club portable
had over 1 ,200 entries a class B with one or
two person portable had 350 just over 350 we
did have 45 mobile entries over 648 home entries
running commercial power again another 400 plus
running a home and emergency power and then finally
186 or so running an EOC class All right, well
some good numbers there and we look for those
to to go up even more now What about the theme
now last year? We had the the grid chase thing
going on kind of at the same time What's the
theme for this year? What are the or what are
the points of emphasis? Frankly, there is no
theme this year You know, we talked about maybe
in just a little bit before the program started
uh some you know uh maybe more oversight overseeing
themes and and and the one i've always tried
to impress upon people is as they're trying to
develop their strategy for each field day that
they come up with their own personal themes whether
it's based on score based on checking all of
the activity boxes and bonuses uh maybe it's
social maybe it's um public uh uh information
exposure uh having a having their own goal of
maybe this will be the event that has the greatest
exposure to the public in a public place. Other
groups will make it all about emergency communications
and so they will come at 1800 UTC on Saturday
and not even start setting up until 1800 to prove
how quickly they can set up. Some have asked
us well what's tell us about the the number of
hours you can operate well by and large it's
a 24 -hour event except if you don't begin setting
up until 1800 on Saturday and if you do you can
actually operate an extra three hours for the
sake of the fact that you didn't set up in advance
so some people groups will use that as their
theme and and finally when they're all sort of
scratching their heads or just sort of in a quandary
of, we really don't know what to do. I think
the overall theme always should be, what's the
maximum fun? How do you define fun for your field
day? What makes it the most accountable, memorable,
result -driven for you? I think we kind of touched
on this before the show. Let me know. Number
one, park safety. Number two, safety. And number
three, have fun. It got covered up there a little
bit. Paul, let's do that again. Oh, I'm sorry.
Were you not hearing me? Yeah, I think we were
getting some... some muffling from Bart's mic
here, so. Yeah, gotcha. Well, as I said, so the
three things I think we touched on this a little
bit in conversation before the show, but the
three things we talked about is, number one,
be safe. The safety, I think, should be the first
priority. Number two, safety. And number three,
have fun. Because it really is, it's an operating
event. It should be fun. for the participants
and fun for the people that would come in from
the community you know we want to show people
that you know what amateur radio is and and how
it can be fun and what we do one of the biggest
things i saw or i heard from people when i was
telling personal friends that i got in a job
at the arrl nobody knew what amateur radio was
so i think this is you know this is one of the
big points that we really need to hit on with
field day is it's one of one of our times where
you could really get you know try to get maximum
exposure to the public about amateur radio and
what we can do not only about having fun but
also being there as a resource in times of emergency
and That we are a communication tool that can
be used when all else fails Okay, well, I think
that's a great theme is Have your own theme come
up with the way that that works best for you
and have some fun and be safe so we're going
to take a break here and we're going to come
back and Start in on all of these questions.
So if you have a question Give us a call 812
-650 -9556 or tweet us at HamTalk Live and I'll
be back with Bart and Paul right after this word
from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm having
an antenna party and I ran out of PL -259s. Oh,
come in. Thank you. Would silver -plated PL -259s
from Tower Electronics be too good for your guests?
Those will be fine. Thank you. You saved my life
the other night. Oh, the PL -259s from Tower
Electronics? Yes, they were very successful at
the antenna party. My antenna works like a charm.
Then how can you ever thank me? I'll try to think
of something. Don't be caught without PL259s.
Visit Tower Electronics at a ham fest near you
or visit them online anytime at PL -259 .com
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CQ Field Day. CQ Field Day. This is HamTalk Live
with Neil Rapp. Thanks to them for sponsoring
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August 4th, Berryville, Virginia. August 10th,
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Time at HamTalkLive .com. And be sure to check
us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And
it's time for your calls. If you have a field
day question, give us a call at 812 -650 -9556,
or you can tweet us. at HamTalk Live. Now if
you're listening to us on WTWW or on the podcast
edition you won't be able to reach us live since
we won't be live at that point. But if it's Thursday
night we're on here live so we want to hear from
you. 812 -650 -9556 if I can get my tongue to
work right tonight. 812 -650 -9556 or tweet us
and we do have a few tweets coming in here, so
we will address those. But Paul, first real quickly,
let's remind everybody about the Field Day Locator.
OK, so there is a, well, I guess we could call
it a tool or an app on the ARRL website. And
that will, those two things. One, as a group
or an individual, you can post your intended
Field Day activity on the field day locator,
which is at www .arrl .org slash field hyphen
day hyphen locator. So if you were to go on to
there, you can not only add your site if it's
not on there, you can also look and do a search
in your geographic area of interest to find field
day sites that will be in operation near you.
And as of just a couple minutes ago, we have
14 hundred and eighty six sites listed right
now so throughout everywhere for over fourteen
hundred almost fifteen hundred sites as of this
current time okay so make sure you check that
out if you're looking for a field day location
you can you can find it right there as long as
you've registered and if you haven't registered
please do so people can find where you are okay
well let's uh... go over to twitter here we're
going to take some of these uh... questions that
came in, and the first one comes from Brett,
WY7BG, and says that his local club will be operating
2A and logging field day activities with N1MM,
and he would like to bring a laptop with WSJTX
and plug it into one of their Kenwood rigs to
run FT8. How can I merge my log of QSOs with
theirs? Okay, well the answer is you need to
do this after field day, so that's the first
part. Some groups will go through the effort
of if they're all running N1MM that they would
actually link all the units together. This isn't
something that we'd spend a lot of time talking
about here. but if he wants to drop us an email
to fdinfo at arl .org tomorrow we can send them
some hints on either how to link the computers
or secondly just uh conceptually how to accomplish
what they want to accomplish to have a final
um cumulative log of everything that you're doing
yeah now i had actually answered um Brett earlier
a little bit with a document that I have found
on N1MM's documentation and it describes this
ability that you can actually get those, oh we're
getting some feedback there, you can actually
get those two programs to talk to each other
live so if you want to do the live logging You
can check the box on WSJTX and you can check
the box on N1MM. There is a document that shows
the step -by -step setup. You have to go into
broadcast and turn that on in N1MM. But they
will talk back and forth. So if you want to do
it live, there is a way to do that. I would recommend
going to N1MM and pull up that document in the
additional support material section. And it does
kind of talk you through that. Otherwise, you
can export your ADIF file and then import the
ADIF file later on. So that's what Bart was talking
about. But it sounds like they'll be glad to
lend a hand there as well over email. So Brett
says he'd kind of like to do the live logging.
Hopefully, you can set that up with the broadcast
over the network and do it that way. Let's see,
we have a question from EPARS. I believe this
is, yeah, this is Chris, AA4CB from EPARS, and
says that they have a gota station set up. uh...
but they don't want to go to station on h f because
it will interfere with the two stations that
are on the other bands so can i have to go to
station connect to the local wires x repeater
and make contacts under the go to call sign okay
uh... so something about it can certainly do
that, but those contacts are not going to count
towards your totals for two reasons. One, the
communications must leave after your field day
site by amateur radio RF. So if we're going out
through the internet, that doesn't really count.
And secondly, we're using a repeater. So you're
going to want to be limiting your contacts that
will count towards your totals to simplex -based
contacts, not anything going through a repeater
or through the internet. So I pretty much think
that that kind of answers that right there. Now,
let me throw this in. I'm not the contest branch
manager or the radio sport manager, nor do I
play one on TV. But one of the things that we've
done in the past at field days I've been to is
you might do that but you can use that as maybe
an educational activity so yeah you're not going
to be able to put that in the log you're not
going to be able to count those as points because
you're going through a repeater you're going
through an internet link either one and in this
case both but you could have an educational activity
of how that all works and and that be part of
it Sure sure that you know and that is that is
a good point because that's another one of the
things we wanted you know what field day is all
about is to show people what amateur radio is
all about and even get a fellow member of a club
or a neighboring club interest in a new mode
of operation or hey look look what we can do
through wires so it's absolutely you know you
can certainly do that. It's just those contacts
are not going to count towards your totals when
you're doing the dupe sheets. Now, I want to
mention that we don't collect logs for the purposes
of log review. We do collect dupe sheets and
totals by band and mode. Those are what are submitted
for the field day paperwork. So we don't necessarily
need a... detail that we don't need a detailed
log of every single contact. But just need to
keep in mind that when you are doing contacts
through a repeater and you're more than more
than welcome to have a go to station or even
a VHF station set up on one of the local repeaters
for either for talking or whatever you're going
to use it for, just those can't count towards
those totals in your logs, in your, not your
log submission, your submission of your field
day paperwork. Okay, 812 -650 -9556 is the phone
number and I think we're through all of the tweets.
So if you have a question give us a call or give
us a tweet here and we'll check those. We've
got a few minutes left so we can take some more
questions. 812 -650 -9556. or tweet us at hamtalklive.
Now, another thing I noticed on the website was
that there's some new public service announcements
for the broadcast stations to kind of advertise
your local field day. Okay, absolutely, Neil.
Sorry about that. Absolutely, Neil. Each year
we refresh those and David Insker and Michelle
Patenode do a great job on the ARL's end of having
not only audio, but interactive video, public
service announcements. We consider those vital
to provide to the groups and the groups to share
with their local media. Now you mentioned David
and Bart, you and I had talked and David wasn't
able to make it on the program tonight, but he
did have a few notes of things that he wanted
to kind of make sure everybody knows about so
can we talk about those for a minute absolutely
and i'm looking at the same notes he shared with
both of us so again uh and this this goes beyond
just field day i think one of the things that
we find that we are uh uh very uh low on or we
we are always hurting for and that is good quality
pictures of activities uh, being, um, conducted,
uh, using amateur radio, the demonstrating amateur
radio, whether it's at field day, some sort of
a local, um, communication support activity,
um, whether it's at the club station, whether
it's during a contest, uh, whether it's at a,
uh, sometimes it'll be, uh, some sort of a post.
testing activity, sometimes it's a awards activity
at a club meeting, club meeting programs. We're
hurting for good quality photos. And the shortcoming
is that while they're being taken and they're
out there, they don't often get shared to us.
And whether it's field day or anywhere else,
we invite you to share those with ARL. We've
got a variety of places that you can do that.
You can certainly send them to contests at arl
.org. That's plural. as an attachment, be sure
to provide a photo credit as well as a caption.
And we can't stress enough, certainly in the
environment we have right now where we're continuing
to try to engage youth, is that in a youth under
18, We do have to have a photo released. That
document is also available. We talk about it
in the Field Day package, but it's available
on the ARL website as well. So the first part
is just if you're taking photos, share them,
upload them to the ARL Facebook page. Again,
caption and credit and releases, releases to
the contest at arl .org link. If you're posting
photos or videos on social media, please include
the hashtag. pound sign ARRLFD so we can find
them and make use of them as well. Make sure
the people are identified. Again, we're getting
into that caption. And again, parents or guardians
sign a photo release. Those are always important
and sometimes difficult to track down after the
fact. So if you can get those. On -site as you
do them that might help too, but you got to have
those those release forms, but definitely share
those we'd like to see those and I like to go
through and and get on Twitter and follow that
hashtag ARRLFD and kind of see what everybody
is up to so we're gonna have a lot of fun. Gonna
get started tomorrow night with some antenna
supports and then we'll get started on Saturday
morning. But as I said, SO3L was going on here
trying to get all these computers talking on
M1MM and get all that running. So we're looking
forward to a fun time and Hopefully everybody
out there is too. So if you have a question,
this is the last call for questions at 812 -650
-9556 or tweet us at HamTalk Live and we can
try to squeeze in one more here if we have another
question out there. Yes, Bart. So to offer a
couple of other things while you're waiting on
that last or last couple of questions. To further
Paul's conversation on RF in and RF out of the
site, again, this is all about radio. So we can't
assume during the course of some sort of an emergency,
disaster of some sort, that we're going to have
public communications available to us, the backbones.
And again, so RF -in and RF -out, we do get questions
from a variety of participants asking about what
about D -Star? What about EchoLink? What about
WinLink? And the answer is the same for all of
those. Peer -to -peer, RF -in, RF -out, you can
use those services. Once it leaves the site,
it's both beyond your control and our control
to know what technology is being used as sort
of the middleman. So if you do use EchoLink or
WinLink, As long as your signal leaves the site
via RF or re -enters the site via RF, those other
backbones could be engaged, but they cannot be
directly engaged through a network connection.
They have to be done through radio. So that was
one of the primary things I was going to mention
on RF in and RF out. The other thing is the messaging.
The SM message bonus and also 10 NTS messages.
we get a variety of questions on the format.
And the format is always the same. These are
the formal style NTS protocol or ICS 213 protocol.
How you manage them after that, as long as it
enters or leaves the site via RF, that's entirely
up to the field day groups. We don't feel it
obligated at all that you have to deliver the
message during the field day period. In other
words, if you send the messages during field
day, you can count them. It doesn't matter if
it takes an hour or three days for them to actually
get delivered, you get credit for them. And of
course, messages coming in must be received during
the field day period, or if they are being relayed,
again, they're being relayed during the field
day period. But they must enter and exit using
a standard, if you will, message protocol. This
isn't just, you know, the Indiana University
field day group says, hi, we know we need all
the preamble, the precedence, the message, and
it needs to be in those standard formats. Okay,
very good. Well, let's see, I think we have another
question here and This this one I knew this was
gonna happen so here we go if field day is not
a contest Why is Real -time live score reporting
encouraged was that a converse? controversial
decision Is it a mixed message about it being
a contest or not a contest so? I've actually
seen this one running around on Twitter a lot
today. Thoughts on that? Since you've seen it,
we haven't, that's okay. We haven't talked about
that at all. We haven't talked about real -time
scoring. We only talk about submission after
the fact of the event, and it's driven based
on groups wanting to describe what they did,
how well they did, what bonuses they achieved,
mostly in numbers. But anything after that, including
what Paul emphasized, which is we don't collect
logs, we don't want the logs, we do want dupe
sheets to verify that groups aren't encountering
duplicate contacts. The idea being, you know,
you got a site, you got 15 operators, you potentially
have six operators who sit down at 20 meter phone.
We want to make sure that operator 2 doesn't
rework many of the stations that operator 1 did,
and operator 3 doesn't rework the stations that
1 and 2 did. So we want to ensure that the end
result total, not necessarily in live, but the
end result total doesn't include duplicates.
That's insured through a dupe sheet. But frankly,
if you're running software like N1MM and 3FJP
or others, It's got dupe indicators during the
course of it. The best way to manage those is
if it comes up as a dupe in your hunt and pounce.
In other words, you're not calling CQ, but you're
actually finding stations to work. You see that
come up when you type the call sign in, don't
call him. So we will accept a Cabrillo file as
evidence of live duping, but we're not accepting
it for the purpose of comparing logs. or analyzing
logs, it's just telling us that you had a live
software program ensuring that you weren't incurring
duplicates. Paul, were you going to say something
there? I was basically going to touch on a lot
of the same points that Bart touched on. And
again, we don't, again, I'll express it again.
an operating of that not a contest consider it
more of a friendly competition i mean some some
groups do have that there is there and it's been
known that i've i've known several local groups
they they actually get in in engaged in a in
a friendly competition that's that's there with
it they're having fun with that and that you
know again it's it's it's all about getting out
there having fun and really just getting on the
air and having fun. So I mean, if you want to
make it a friendly competition or see if you
can do better than you did last year, well, that's
your prerogative. That's all well and good. OK,
very good. Well, that hopefully answers the question
here. So thank you for that. And let's make sure
we haven't left anybody out here. Refresh the
page and don't see anything here. So And we're
we're at the end of our time. So Gentlemen, thank
you for being here any last words Paul Well,
I just want to say that the you know field day
entry that entries are due by Tuesday July 23rd
And we will have a web app at field -day .arrl
.org. And again, that's where you would be submitting
your logs. And we do accept them by postal mail
as well. And I believe email, correct Bart? So
you're going to see postal mail and web app.
Our goal is to accept as much of the electronic
submissions as possible with the web app with
attachments. We, in the course of updating the
field day rules package, have actually removed
reference to the email address. I know a lot
of people know that it's out there and we'll
have to figure out how to deal with that because
that's been sort of the pattern of past years.
But we really like now to focus on those two
avenues and eventually, probably never, but eventually
try to get to a high 90 percent of all field
day submissions being electronic. That would
make everybody's job a whole lot easier. So I
wish you great success on that one. Well Bart,
any final comments here before we go? Two things.
Paul and I are doing some field day visits in
New England on Saturday. So we look forward to
seeing some of the sites that we've coordinated
with. I know a lot of ARL directors and section
managers are going to be out and about, ARL field
employees. This is a national event, international
in many respects, and we want to, both from headquarters
and from the field, get out there and show our
support to all of these groups who are doing
such a great job in using this event to not only
have fun, to demonstrate technology to the public,
to practice their emergency preparedness. but
also just to tell them we appreciate that they're
doing that. Paul and I are going to be at W1AW
for a good part of Saturday between bulletins.
So W1AW will be on the air as well as on bulletin
status. I'm not sure how much there will be on
Sunday, but we'll definitely put in several hundred
queues on Saturday. And as they might say on
Hill Street Blues, be safe out there. and also,
work them first, worry later. Okay. Alright,
very good. Go ahead, Paul. If you do have any
last minute questions or even questions about,
you know, about how to submit a log or anything
like that after the contest, you know, or a contest,
I said contest there, I just... After the events,
it's FD... info at ARRL .org and then that info
is also on the ARRL website and by all means
you can always call the contest branch at 860
-594 -0232 and you'll get my desk so chances
are I'll be answering that phone but if you do
have a question by all means give a holler I'll
be in the office tomorrow and as well we'll be
there after you know after the event ends and
uh you know answering any questions regarding
entry submissions and and the like all right
very good well thank you both for uh coming on
the show and and paul congratulations on the
on the new gig and bart on the on the upgrade
there and um let's do it again next year all
right sounds like a plan looking forward to neil
All right. Well, hopefully you don't hear this
sound This is the sound that that we're probably
going to be hearing out here in Bloomington,
Indiana and and so if you hear that sound make
sure you you you get off of the air and stay
safe because We're trying to figure out how we
can get some some floating antenna tripods with
all this rain out here, so Be sure to stay safe
and hope to hear you on the air. I will be. operating
under N9SIA, the Southern Indiana Amateur Radio
Association. We're going in with them at the
K9IU, the amateur radio club at Indiana University
and my club school, the Bloomington High School
South Amateur Radio Club, K9SOU. We'll be operating
N9SIA and go to will be K9IU. So hope to hear
you on field day this weekend, but that's a wrap.
for this week's episode of HamTalk Live. Thanks
to my guests, Bart Yonkey, W9JJ, and Paul Bork,
N1SFE, and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening and typing in and invite you back
next Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern time.
We have a double. feature next week we're going
to be talking World Scout Jamboree with Jim Wilson
K5 ND and Bill Stearns NE4 RD and we'll be talking
about that and yes it's almost time once again
for Walmart parking lots on the air and so we'll
have a segment special bonus on Walmart parking
lots on the air 2019 next week as well so a list
of all of our upcoming guests is at HamTalk Just
visit there if you want to see who's coming up
next. And if you like the show, please leave
us a review on iTunes. That helps us get the
word out about the show. So for now, this is
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying seven three, seven
five, and may the good DX be yours.