Thanks for tuning in. HamTalk Live will be on
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is brought to you by Tower Electronics. For connectors,
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you or call 920 -435 -2973 or online at pl -259
.com. Good evening, everyone. It's time once
again for ham talk live. It's episode number
120 field a Q &A 2018 recorded live on Thursday,
June 21st 2018 I'm your host Neil rap WB 9 VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ham talk
live Tonight we're joined by Bart Jahnke W9JJ
and David Isker N1RSN and we'll take your calls
live in just a few minutes. Last week Dr Ralph
Fedor K0IR was here to talk about the adventures
to Bouvet Island. attempting to complete yet
another DXpedition. If you missed that show,
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you'll have a chance to call in or tweet in.
If you call us, I'll give you the telephone number.
It's not time to call just yet, but that phone
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and you can tweet us. at HamTalk Live on Twitter.
And we want to hear from you tonight. We want
to take all of your last minute questions and
we want to open up quite a bit of time for the
calls and the tweets tonight. But we have plenty
to talk about. So I'll be back with Bart and
David right after this word from Tower Electronics
here on HamTalk Live. Hey, honey, have you seen
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PL259 connectors? Who is the most dangerous person
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gun, and an idea. Now, here's Neil Rapp with
more Ham Talk Live. Tower Electronics will be
in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, South Milwaukee on July
7th. August 5th will be in Berryville, Virginia.
Or go to their website PL -259 .com. Well tonight
we're joined by Bart Yonkey, W9JJ. He is the
ARRL contest branch manager. He's served in that
role since January 2016, but he's no stranger
to ARRL headquarters. Bart started working at
ARRL in 1985 as the editor of the ARRL repeater
directory and from 1989 till 2005 he was the
volunteer exam coordinator manager at ARRL. He
spent 10 years working in the customer service
manufacturing sales and support and information
technology fields in the Midwest and on the East
Coast after that and now he's back with the league.
David Isker, N1RSN, is a newcomer to ARRL, an
amateur radio. He became the communications manager
at ARRL in October and was just licensed in April.
David has an extensive background in media relations
including 20 years at the University of Hartford
as the director of media relations and spent
four years as the editor of the Hartford Business
Journal. He also spent two years As the Hartford
bureau chief for Thompson Reuters news service
so Bart David welcome to the show. Thanks for
joining us tonight Well, we've been been talking
here about what to talk about and and again we
want to get as many questions in as we can because
You don't always have the luxury of being able
to ask the source of you know. Hey what's the
ruling on this what's the clarification on this
and if you if you do that a lot of times you
know you gotta do that well in advance so tonight's
kind of the one of the. One of the last opportunities
you're going to have to ask those questions So
we want to make sure that we give plenty of time
for that But we're going to get a few of the
must -do things out of the way here first and
and Bart We're looking at rule changes for everybody
who's done this for years and and you know did
all the rules last year Just a few minor tweaks
again. Just kind of like last year Let's go over
just what the little tweaks were to the rules,
but pretty much. It's the same thing It sure
is Neil and in a nutshell we approached it Annually
as we do first based on the aero board of directors
reviewing Field day as an activity and determining
what new or different activities or modifications
to the rules are required during this last review
period. They did not have any. So as we approached
the new year, we went in, we changed the dates,
of course, and made some slight tweaks to the
safety officer checklist just to help people
who felt that it was a little confusing in some
areas. Basically, we just wanted to make it clear
for their use. that we're looking for them to,
in a nutshell, attempt to meet all of the criteria,
but we're not expecting them to be able to. We
just want them to take their best shot at having
a safe operation and answering the questions
on the checklist. And anything else? That's it
for this field day. Of course a number of questions
have come up about how things can be incorporated,
especially from the digital mode standpoint.
And we may address that here separately under
questions. So I don't know if you wanted me to
go there quite yet. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll hang
on to that, but yeah, FT eight, I know it was
going to be something. And when we'll be sure
to, to talk about that, um, David, um, you know,
field day is one of our biggest on air events.
And, uh, it's not just an on air event. It's
a public outreach. It's one of the times that
we get to kind of show people what hams do. So
what advice do you have for groups that are participating
to let people know what we're doing and invite
them out to the field day sites? Well, Neil,
as we talk, you know, literally 48 hours, I guess,
from or so from field day. A lot of the work
should have been done already by groups to reach
out to members of the media, the traditional
media, newspapers, radio, TV stations to let
them know where you are, what you're doing, what
you have planned. Hopefully folks have been making
that contact. We've been sending out information
to the PIOs throughout amateur radio to try to
make them aware and give them tips and tools
to do. But a lot of it comes down to now what
you can continue to do on social media. Um, to
be sending out, um, and posting information on
Facebook, on Twitter, um, to make people aware
in the, in the general community. Um, all of
the, all of the people that are following you
or that might be looking in, uh, in your feeds.
And there are still some reporters that are on
social media as well. So it's a good, uh, good
way to, to do a last check with them, but, um,
we encourage people, there's still time to sign
up and join. the, uh, the face, the field day
Facebook group that we've set up. Um, we're,
we're adding people to that every day. So we,
we encourage groups to make sure that they're
signing up to that so that they can, uh, share
what they're doing and see what everybody else
is doing. It's a great, uh, a great community
gathering point for, uh, for people to be aware
of. And we want to make sure to mention the hashtag
because it always seems like there's. you know,
a dozen different hashtags going around. So make
sure you, you mentioned the hashtag. Yeah, we
we've set up an official hashtag, which is hashtag
ARRLFD. So if you put that on, if folks put that
on their posts, number one, we'll be able to,
to collect that. And then we can share that out
over the, the broader ARRL Facebook feeds. And
that way, they can see what other people are
doing. We're going to be trying to share as much
as they can. So it creates more of a community.
But yes, use that hashtag, because we want to
share as much as we can over our network. And
when you put that hashtag on, it allows us to
grab that information and put it out on our feeds
as well. So hashtag ARRLFD. Okay, very good.
Now, you know, this happens a lot and this is
something that Bart mentioned. You know, sometimes
media outlets don't pay any attention to what
you send them and then you don't get anybody
to cover the activity. David, should they just
give up and not bother next year? What's the
strategy on that? Oh, absolutely not. And in
fact, actually, I would suggest that even for
a TV station or the newspaper, you could still
call them tomorrow and ask them if they're sending
anybody. But in future years, if they don't come
this year, it may not be anything that you did.
It may be that there was just so many other events
going on or other conflicts that they had that
they could not get there. So don't give up. Try
it again next year and also take a look at what
you sent them. Maybe there's a way to punch it
up to, um, for TV stations, especially give them
more of a sense of what the visuals are going
to be. Talk about the rigs that you're setting
up, what kind of antennas, where your group is,
everything that you're doing. Um, and, and keep
in mind. Again, like I said, TV requires good
visuals. So try to make sure that you offer them
the visuals and maybe you'll have better luck
next year. But I think the thing is to keep trying.
And I would also say it's important to, we obviously
use field day as a way to really get attention.
But there are things that you can do throughout
the year to develop relationships with reporters,
Um, and assignment editors at, um, at newspapers
and TV stations throughout the year. So that
when they, you send them your field day stuff
and you follow up with a phone call to them,
they're much more receptive to it because they
know who you are. They are, they already have
a relationship with you. So I would, um, I would
recommend doing that as well. And I like what
you said about, you know, don't give up because
you know, they may have had so many other things
to. to cover that day that, you know, it's not
there. If you haven't worked in broadcast media
and journalism, you may not know that there are
these things called slow news days. And so I
was in Cincinnati a few days ago and was watching
the TV station and one of the top stories was
that This diner chain called frishes is switching
from Pepsi back to Coke again Now now for people
in Cincinnati that may be a big deal, but still
I didn't think that was quite the top headline
that's what you call a slow News day and you're
more likely to get on on those slower news days
when sometimes, you know Everything's happening
at once and and so it may just be it just wasn't
the year for you That's absolutely true. I mean,
you know what we find with especially with TV
stations They tend they tend to be a little have
a fewer personnel on working on on the weekends
and So that you know, there's only a limited
number of things that they can cover So if something
big happens if a tractor trailer truck rolls
over on on the interstate or there's a major
fire you know, no matter how good your event
is going to be, it's going to be nearly impossible
to get them because all the TV crews are going
to the fire or going to the, you know, to see
the highway shut down or whatever it is. So again,
it may not be you. It may just be that there
was so much going on that day that they couldn't
get there. So, you know, it doesn't hurt to do
some, you know, like I said, self -reflection,
take a look at the materials you sent and see
if there's ways that you can spice them up for
next year. But also after field day, you can
start contacting those people again and maybe
during the summer you have other activities going
on. You can start developing relationships with
them so that when field day comes around in 2019,
they know you and they'll take your call and
they'll know that you're going to provide them
something worthwhile. So, um, so, you know, relationship
building goes on year round and that, you know,
you can certainly start that the day after field
day is over. All right. All good information
there. And, uh, David or Barty, either one of
you, uh, let's talk about the, uh, field day
locator here for a minute. That's a, an important
tool to find a field day location near you. I
guess I'll grab that one quick. Field Day Locator.
So we have this great Google Maps tool called
the Field Day Locator. And you can find that
off the ARL's website under the Field Day link.
And when you scroll down on your page, you'll
see Field Day Locator. Click on it, and you'll
come up with a great interactive Google Map tool,
which will then allow you to, if you're the media
and you're looking to find out where there are
field day locations in your area. You can type
in a city and state or if you know a little more
about the group, you can also even type in a
call sign and find out information about that
particular group. You'll see red pins on the
map and choose one that's in your area or choose
several. When you click on it, it will blow up
and expand with contact information about the
group that's putting on a field day near you.
with the name of their group, the contact person's
name and telephone number, address information,
etc. to help you find one of those locations
or multiple ones. And again, we certainly can't
put in enough plugs here to entice the media.
Here's your chance to visit multiple sites that
might be in your coverage area. Okay, very good.
And one last thing here before we go and take
a break and look for some calls and some tweets
from all of our listeners. Theme for this year,
you want to say something about that? So as people
have seen, certainly from the ham radio community,
each year we have our Field Day logo. A couple
of years ago the logo was associated with the
National Parks on the Air activity, the brown
logo with the boot symbol, which is typically
a hiking symbol. This year, because we have an
association with our International Grid Chase
for 2018, we have the Grid Chase logo showing
a checkered, if you will, moving pattern of grids
with a focus of field day. We can talk more about
the Grid Chase later, but In conjunction with
this year's field day, we're also promoting the
year -long activity of making contacts with as
many different one -degree latitude by two -degree
longitude grid squares worldwide. All right,
very good. Well, we're going to take a break,
but we're going to come back and take your calls
and your tweets and Skype calls right after this
word from the National Voice of America Museum
of Broadcasting right here on HamTalk Live. The
National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting
located in Westchester, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati
is only two minutes off I -75. The museum is
the former home of the Voice of America Bethany
Relay Station. Tours are now available every
Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 p .m. Eastern
time. You can see the control room, a 200 ,000
watt transmitter, and the most comprehensive
collection of inventions by the iconic Powell
-Crosley Jr. Also on display is a huge antique
radio exhibit and R .L. Drake's personal collection
of most every Drake amateur rig ever made. This
is a unique opportunity to see amateur radio
in action and have a chance to get on the air
from WC8VOA. Admission is only five dollars a
person. The museum is located close to historic
WLW AM and tons of shopping and restaurants.
Take a trip to the VOA museum or visit us online
at TheOAMuseum .org. CQ Field Day. CQ Field Day.
This is HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. HamTalk
Live is on the air every Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern Time right here at HamTalkLive
.com and be sure to check us out on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram. And it's time for your
calls now, so if you have a question for Bart
and or David, give us a call. Phone number 812
-NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638. four two six one
or you can Skype us or tweet us we're at ham
talk live on Twitter as well as on Skype now
we've come up with some more stuff and one of
the things that Bart just mentioned are some
of those public service announcements that the
ARRL has and David you've got a couple of new
ones we did we created new both audio and video
PSAs, which are actually on the, you can get
to them right on the Field Day website, arrl
.org slash field dash day. If you scroll to the
bottom of that page, you'll see the bullet point
for PSAs and you can see both the. 30 second
and 60 second audio and video PSA's that people
can download and provide to their organizations
or to media outlets that might be using them.
We also, we were incredibly fortunate in the
past year, and this isn't specifically Field
Day related, but we had Joe Walsh, the guitarist
from the Eagles, did some PSA's for us. He came
to visit W1AW at ARRL headquarters and he's a
tremendous, you know, he's not only a great guitarist,
but he's a great ham radio operator as well and
has a tremendous collection of vintage radio
gear. And he's also was very Um, very kind to,
uh, to ARRL and to W one AW. So he, he gave up
his time to do some PSAs for us. And those are
up on, uh, on the ARRL website as well. If we
wanted to, wanted to listen to those. All right.
Very good. So be sure to check those out. And,
uh, we do have a couple of, uh, questions coming
in. We've got a whole list of things we can talk
about, but, uh, let's get to, uh, everybody's
questions here first. This one comes in from
KC5FM. What's the deal with FEMA Region 10 having
an exercise on 60 meters during field day? Bart?
Well, funny you should ask. That was mentioned
to me in passing. It's an activity that we're
discussing right now for potentially for next
year. We haven't worked out the details of how
it might be conducted. Again, the 60 meter allocation
is just five channels. So it's not a field day
designated frequency range, but if some sort
of arrangement in conjunction with FEMA and a
couple of other agencies might be able to be
established. Who knows? We might be able to introduce
some sort of an event tying amateur radio operators
to, oh I guess for no better example, but to
have some means of collecting information from
these FEMA groups. I don't know if they're going
to do bulletins that we would copy or they might
do transmissions. It's just, it's in its infancy
right now. Anything I offer at this point would
be conjecture because it's got a long way to
go. And I don't necessarily know what our role
might be, but that was one of the, it's come
up for conversation at the moment. Okay, very
good. And I hadn't heard about that one. So Lloyd's
out there keeping track of all that stuff. 812
-638 -4261 is the phone number or give us a tweet.
and let us hear from you. We do have one other
one that I shared with you guys earlier from
Ed, DD5LP, since it's two o 'clock in the morning.
He didn't want to get up at two o 'clock in the
morning to listen to the show. So he said his
question ahead of time and said, given that so
many smaller hamfests are having difficulty attracting
attendees, Where field day continues to attract
both young and old hams and non hams? What do
the experts think about maybe combining these
two club organized activities into one and have
a local ham fest at the contest site? Either
you know coinciding with field day or maybe another
contest Some ham fest in Australia are still
referred to as field day. So maybe they're trying
to tell us something Well, it certainly is a
suggestion and I think, you know, with the continuing
challenge that our hobby and community has in
generating enough free time for what we want
to do with all the other demands on people's
lives from work to family to other society activities
that they're engaged in, sometimes the question
that comes up is Do we hold any event? I'm not
talking about ARL, I'm talking about these amateur
groups in general who have their field day, if
you will, flea markets, or they've had some other
social events and the turnout is limited and
they're saying why should we bother? You know,
it really does beg the question, what if we were
to start combining activities? And I will sort
of make that as the foreign focus right now.
If they're having a problem or a challenge, attracting
uh... people uh... you know getting getting people
interested bringing them out uh... you know certainly
if we use the a r l field example it's the largest
activity we have annually and since we track
participants as a part of our reporting we're
talking about thirty five thirty six thousand
participants you know by far just blows the numbers
off of anything else that goes on in united states
and and probably foreign amateur radio as well
So again, if these foreign communities, amateur
radio groups, organizations are having a problem
attracting people to join them, and if they've
got two or three individual activities that have
low turnouts and you can get maybe a larger turnout
out of a single one, what's the harm? Nothing
ventured, nothing gained. Try it, see what happens.
I'll offer one twist, and I know that this is
happening maybe even more so this year than others.
There are clubs across the country where they
found getting enough attendance at field day
was challenging. So some of them have decided
to reach out to neighboring clubs who might have
done an individual activity in the past and said,
hey, how about we do a group activity? And I
think you're going to find that on the air during
this field day where there is now maybe even
more so. And if you look at the QST results,
you'll see this. You'll see the names of clubs
concatenated together because they've grouped
as two or three or four, even five. or more organizations
deciding to do a group field day rather than
individually. We had that here. Yeah. Yeah, Neil,
I want to, you know, sort of follow up on what
Bart said. I think, I think there are some things
that maybe Hamfest and others can look at, at
what field day does. I think part of it is because
Field day, you know, we keep talking about this
and and it's in our you know our promo messages
and things But it really is ham radio's open
house, you know, we pay particular attention
to inviting public and we have You know the the
go to get on the air stations Set up a lot of
you know, a lot of clubs are setting those up
as part of as part of field day. So I think You
know, just a reminder that, you know, to be as,
as open and as welcoming to the general public,
um, as you can and let them know that that's
an open house. I think that's part of the reason
for field days success is cause we really put
a lot of effort into inviting the public to come.
And that, that may be something that folks doing,
you know, smaller ham fest might look at to make
sure that they're. that they're really reaching
out to the general public and not just to their,
um, not just to amateur radio operators. And,
and I told you guys before the contest or says
in me says, no, you gotta run that score up,
you know, you gotta win. And, and, you know,
for some people, this is the only chance to do
a, you know, a multi multi -contest and and so
you know you've got that too but the thing is
there's there's room for all of this and what
works in one place may not work in another and
Neil yeah keeping in mind that field day is not
a contest but secondarily it's you have to each
group has to ask their self both from the perspective
of what are we going to do socially amateur radio
wise and what are we going to do community -wise,
is when you're doing your planning, you have
to ask yourself, and this is maybe the first
question to ask, is it going to be about the
journey, or is it going to be about the end result
destination, and how do we define those two pieces
for what we're going to do? Yeah, yeah. And,
you know, I've gotten into those discussions
before of, you know, is it a contest, is it not
a contest? Yeah, okay, I know it's not a contest,
but there's still a score, you know? And so,
you know, Other people use this as a social event
and, and that's, you know, and like I said, I
think it really comes down to what, like you
said, what do you want to get out of this? What
is your, what is your goal? And, and so there's,
there's all kinds of opportunities here. And
I think actually, I will say, uh, we got time,
but I think we're in a. You know, amateur radio
is actually in a great spot right now at the
current time to increase our awareness and to
bring more people from the general public into
amateur radio with everything that we went through
last year with all of the natural disasters that
occurred. and they were terrible things. I mean,
I don't mean to minimize how terrible things
were in Puerto Rico and Houston and the wildfires
in California and all the things going on, but
it did raise awareness of the role that amateur
radio plays in that. And so I think it did pique
a lot of people's interest in amateur radio and
so that we're finding that now when you talk
to people about amateur radio, they have more
awareness and understanding than, than we've
seen in the general public in some time. Yeah.
And that's, that's always a good thing. Okay.
We've got a couple of more tweets here. Uh, Laura
Goudreau tweeted back, uh, with Lloyd and us.
and said that we are opening the 60 meter interoperability
net at the direct request of several amateur
operators so they can practice on the weekend
but they are running the net a little earlier
in the day so that there's only a two hour overlap
and that again that was at their direct request
of several hams so it looks like they are trying
to have that opportunity there for people who
can do that and keep the overlap down to a minimum.
So just a little follow up there on that. 812
-638 -4261 is the telephone number or tweet us
at HamTalk Live. We've been enjoying some questions
here and some comments tonight on Twitter, so
keep them coming here. Bart, one of the things
that seems to always come up is what class should
we be? A lot of the club stations, they're used
to that, but especially home stations. So can
you run down some of those harder to figure out
and maybe not as used classes so that people
know how they should classify their stations
and setups? Absolutely. So we want to keep the
explanation simplistic to begin with. And the
way to do that is to write down on a piece of
paper the letters A, B, C, D, E, F. So when you're
figuring what your field day exchange, your designation
is going to be, you start with those letters
and then you figure out how many transmitters
you're going to have used simultaneously. If
you're a home station, generally it's just one
transmitter. And finally, it's your ARRL section.
So if I'm a home station and I'm in Connecticut
and I'm going to use one transmitter, I know
that my category is D for a home station on commercial
power and I know that if my home station is going
to use a battery or solar powered or a generator
or hydrogen powered or wind powered, it's going
to be under emergency power and the category
for that is E. So we've just taken care of home
stations either D commercial or E, emergency
power. Working our way backward, you've got C,
and C is exclusively for stations that move,
so it's a mobile station. Generally just one
transmitter, so one C, and then you report the
section that you're currently in while you're
traveling. Working our way backwards, we've got
B stations, and A and B are interchangeable only
in the number of participants. So a B station
is a portable station, is not at home. It has
no access to the conveniences of a home station.
It doesn't have access to the antennas, the radio
equipment that's in the home station hooked up
or ready to go. It doesn't have access to the
facilities of a home, such as the kitchen, the
sleeping arrangements, the bathroom. A and B
are portable stations and they... idea is the
uh... these is this is not a convenient way to
set up in your backyard this is about getting
out into the wilderness uh... operating from
the park operating from a fire station operating
from a municipal center uh... operating from
a mountain top operating from the farmers field
these are all portable uh... locations that are
unassociated with any formal uh... otherwise
radio station location Carrying that on, the
difference between a B station and an A station
is a B station is limited to two participants.
So an operator and a helper is two participants.
Two operators is two participants. Two operators
and a helper moves it to class A. Class A is
three or more participants. The typical club
or larger field day group is going to be an A
station. So then once they know that they are
either in A or B as a portable operation, they
figure out how many transmitters they're going
to have in simultaneous use. That'll be the number
preceding the alphabetical character. And finally,
their ARRL section is the last part of the exchange.
So for example, if they're operating portable
with 10 people and they're in Western Massachusetts,
and they're going to have three transmitters
on the year their exchange will be three a massachusetts
or three a uh... i'm sorry western massachusetts
with three eight w m a arm but what did we forget
uh... class f class f is eo c stations these
are stations that formal uh... arrangements with
an eo c they may be operating from an eo c they
may have a mobile unit that is provided by the
eo c and as a formal uh... arrangement to use
the mobile station in some capacity you know
if they if they have this great relationship
with their own eo c and they say hey we have
an exercise coming up we'd like to be able to
use your mobile unit may we have your permission
to use that in conjunction with the eo c they
get that in writing and they document it and
they are then an eo c station and the famous
true the number of transmitters in their section
complete their exchange Okay, so there you have
the rundown and the clarifications of all those
classes, so you know what to do. But again, most
home stations, if you're just plugging in to
the wall, one delta, one D, and then go from
there. To supplement that, Neil, one additional
piece. Some people say, well, what if we're a
3AB or we are some sort of a concatenated uh...
uh... state -of -the -class and what they're
confusing is the QST listings with the actual
on -the -air transmission. The on -the -air transmission
is the single alphabetical character. How we
show stations in QST after the event uh... is
further defined there uh... how they operated.
If they were a a commercially powered portable
station they might see something like 3AC or
2BC, for example, a portable station on commercial
power, they might see 2B1B, which happens to
be 2B2B, for example, would be two transmitters,
portable operation, two participants on battery.
So these extended class designations are only
in the published results. They're not what you
use for your over -the -air exchange. Very good
Bart, thank you for clarifying on that. 8126384261
is the phone number or tweet us at amtalklive.
We're starting to run out of time here. We may
go a little bit over tonight, but. We'll get
some other things in here as we can. But if you
have a question, please give us a call. Give
us a tweet here real soon, because we're just
about to end the program here this evening. But
again, we'll keep going here. In fact, we may
do the short version here, the Reader's Digest
version of these. Do you need to register before
you operate, Bart? Negative. You just in this
especially important for home stations. You just
get on the air You operate you understand what
your exchange is and you go ahead and make contacts
Groups that would like to invite the public can
use the field day locator to Attract the public's
attention. And by the way, we have fifteen hundred
and four field day sites currently registered
Wow Wow, that's a lot. And let's talk about modes.
I did say we were going to talk about FT8 later.
So let's get that in. Any restriction on modes?
And let's focus on FT8 because there is a little
different way you need to do that. Sure. So to
begin, all amateur radio modes are permitted
in field day. That doesn't mean they'll be easy
to use, but it means that they're permitted.
Now if you carry that forward, and obviously
the digital realm is now where we have the, you
know, it's the latest, it's the new, it's exciting.
We've got newcomers whose motivations are more
digital than analog. So, you know, step forward
to FTA for the moment. We didn't put any significant
promotion into FTA. In fact, we were more reactive
than proactive. And the reason is is because
FTA right now is not designed to be able to support
multiple different exchanges in normal operation.
In other words, signal reports and some other
component. It's basically set up under the premise
of grid squares. So an RST in a grid square is
the typical reports that you will see on FTA,
most often at HFFTA. Certainly the VHF contestors
will tell you that FTA has a place in what they
do. There is a specific mode called North America
contest mode. It's unique in that it only exchanges
grid squares. That's not typically what you're
going to find during this field day, but just
be aware that if you start seeing information
that looks a little weird, like a grid square
that's on the opposite side of the earth during
the exchange, It probably means that one of you
is on the standard FTA, and the other one's got
the North America contest mode enabled, and either
one of you needs to toggle that off to be able
to do that part of the handshake. But keep in
mind that the field day exchange that's required
is the transmitter count, the class, and the
section. Now, how do you do that in the current
FTA, which defaults to grid squares? Joe Taylor
and his group point out in one of their FAQs
for FTA, that TX5 sequence, so you got TX1, 2,
3, 4, and 5. In the TX5 sequence normally used
for 73, you've got up to 13 characters of free
text that can be used. So if you are using it
during field day and wonder how you can exchange
the required field day information, put it in
TX5, so you'd say 3AWMA73. and you hope that
the other station gives you a similar TX -5 response.
If they don't, you can't count them as a statistical
QSO for field day. That doesn't mean you can't
have fun with it, doesn't mean you can't experiment
with it, doesn't mean you can't demonstrate it
to other people, and it doesn't mean you can't
be using it in some fashion, but you just can't
count the QSOs that don't have the valid exchange.
Okay, very good. Well Bart, we're going to give
you a minute breather here. David, let's talk
about the soapbox a little bit and and some thank
you letters. Sure. Yeah, the soapbox is a great
opportunity for people to get information out
there and that's it's on the ARRL website, arl
.org slash contest slash soapbox. that should
get you to it and it gives you a chance to put
comments on. I want to spend most of my time
though talking about thank you letters and I
think that's important. I wouldn't say letter,
I mean I would do email notes but obviously just
like you would thank the volunteers who came
out to help you with the setup and with running
your station. or for field day, you should send
notes to all of the to any media that shows up
at your at your event. You know, thank them for
coming out. I would also say that if you that
if the to go back even a little further, when
media show up at your field day, make sure that
you're there to welcome them. Make sure that
there's somebody designated to greet them, to
kind of take them around and and help them understand
what they're looking at because they may not,
they may not be aware. They've seen your, your
email or your press release, but they, um, and
they're going to cover it and they just don't
know what they're, what they're looking at. So
they'll need some guidance and some help when
they get there. So make sure that you're, you
have somebody designated to help them, um, explain
what you're doing, why you're doing it. And,
um, and give them some information about your
field day operations. And then once that airs,
I would send an email note to thank them for
coming out and for helping to increase the visibility
of amateur radio. And that's a great way to kind
of go back to what we were saying at the beginning.
It's a great way to start establishing relationships
with folks in the media. When you send them a
thank you note, they appreciate that, then they
may get back in touch with you about something
else later on. So I think sending a note, and
I would do it primarily by email, you could do
a handwritten note if you were so inclined. It's
pretty hard to find how to make sure that that
gets to the right person where email, at least,
you know, it will get exactly to who you're sending
it. So I would I would encourage that. And that's
that's how that's how great relationships start.
So I think those those are important things to
do. All right, Bart, one last thing here. And
in fact, Troy W9KVR just brought this up on the
chat here about the go to station. We haven't
talked about the freebies here, so everybody
likes free stuff. So let's talk about the freebies
for a minute. Sure. Did Troy have any specific
question about go to just general? No, just,
just to comment. It's good opportunity to add
a radio to your regular ops. And so, you know,
you can get some, some youth ops on and that
kind of thing. Exactly. So the go -to station
is free. You don't get too many things in life
that are free and certainly in field day it's
our free. Here's a way to provide a station that
the public, that inactive hams, that newcomers,
newly licensed hams, youth can have an opportunity
to sit down at and not feel the pressure of I
have to make contacts because that's why we have
the stations, these other stations set up. This
station is exclusively there for them to get
the amateur radio experience firsthand. It's
an opportunity for, because there is a control
operator who is in charge, it's an opportunity
for any person, licensed or unlicensed, to sit
down and understand the experience of making
these contacts. We have an example that we showed
in a photo in QST last year in the field day
write up where we had one of the elected representatives
in the Carolinas, a lady, who was operating at
that field day site. She wasn't licensed. She
was a U .S. representative and she wanted to
find out more about amateur radio and they sat
her down and they put her on the air and she
had a great time. They got a photo op. It was
terrific. So the go -to station is a way to earn
points for your field day activity. Every 20
contacts generates 20 bonus points, up to 100
bonus points per individual. And so you can chuck
up those points quite readily. Again, it's in
increments of 20, so 19 doesn't earn you anything,
but certainly 20 does as well as increments of
20. We also have a free VHF UHF station, so it
does not count in your transmitter count. so
you decide, you know, do we really need another
station? Well, guess what? It doesn't count against
you. It's free. And frankly, if anybody's been
paying attention to the VHF bands right now,
we had the VHF contest just a weekend ago, and
the activity was boom, I'm sorry, two weekends
ago, the activity was booming. Six meters for
a better half of the the will be uh... u uh...
north america mostly the on the uh... eastern
side was racking up contacts some of the stations
have hundreds of contacts and uh... and two meters
has prevent uh... presented e -skip in the last
couple of days so you know field day station
scattered across the u s uh... it's it's often
like a vhf contact and so you will find activity
and two -meter sideband 2 meter digital modes,
MSK 144 for meteor scatter, FT8 as well, 2 meters
as well as 6 meters, 6 meters 50 .313, 2 meters
about 144, 140 or so, between 140 and 150. And
so again, free stations, 6 meters may actually
generate more contacts than 10 meters does, and
10 meters may be open. So don't rule out these
higher bands, they will be uh... activity uh...
pool uh... places for your station and again
don't and neil i don't know do you want me to
touch on the bonuses quickly yeah let's do it
let's do it real quick so you have a number of
bonuses uh... starting at the vhs site you've
got the satellite bonus for making uh... satellite
contact you've got the emergency car bonus for
stations that are running that you've got uh...
the media publicity at david talked about if
you're in a public location you get a bonus for
that If you have a public information table with
information about amateur radio, somebody being
the focal point, like the person that David mentioned
who would greet the media or the public and take
them one -on -one and explain to them why we're
there. A formal National Traffic System message
to the SM or SEC is a bonus for that one message
if you generate it from your field day site and
send it out. The W1A2 copying the W1A2 field
day message, which is sent several times during
the event. Look in our field day packet and you'll
see the entire schedule of field day bulletins.
Formal messages, your group can handle up to
10 formal messages. Sending them, or passing
them, in other words, being relayed, or receiving
them for up to 100 additional points. Natural
power QSOs, if you make up to five natural power
QSOs, you get a bonus. So this would be a source
other than your generator. This would probably
be a solar panel. This would be a wind generator,
things of that nature. But five QSOs have to
be made with it. You get additional points. If
you get an elected official visit, you'll get
a bonus. If you've invited serve agency officials,
not that they showed up, but if you have invited
them, and I should have said that under the elected
official as well, you don't have to expect them
to show up. You just have to invite them. You'll
get a bonus just for taking that to act uh...
educational activity uh... you have uh... you
can you want this bonus you need to develop a
program a limited uh... uh... uh... scope uh...
probably just uh... short uh... summary of what
you plan to do administer it this need to be
something more than ten minutes you know probably
talking thirty to sixty minute activity something
that would help them gain knowledge about certain
aspects of amateur radio building antennas uh...
setting up a uh... all i don't know setting up
a uh... a digital station for maybe p star or
maybe uh... some people have suggested how do
i get involved with amateur tv uh... i'd suggested
that the educational activity could be a training
with uh... first uh... for uh... first aid or
eighty training uh... in conjunction with the
state Again, we talked about social media. We
have a safety officer bonus as well. Somebody
who's responsible or a couple people who will
oversee the entire event to maintain a safety
outlook, a safety perspective. And not last but
certainly not least, youth participation. The
number of youth who completed at least one QSO.
There are bonuses for youth participation. And
we've been amateurs for a long time, many of
us, and we realize that we're not seeing as many
young people you know reach out to people who
you know are interested in amateur radio get
them involved uh... if you can engage their family
bring them to the field eight site uh... be their
mentor uh... that's probably one of the primary
uh... focuses for amateur radio right now is
we need more mentors and uh... uh... that's what
we had you know decades ago we've kind of lost
sight on that And if we can now return to that,
mentoring is probably going to be one of the
strengths of helping people find their way either
into amateur radio, back into amateur radio,
and even through it as a new licensee versus
they get the license and then they don't go anywhere
because they don't know what to do next. All
right. Well, there you have the quick version
of that. Of course, all of that can be found
in the Field Day packet. in QST Magazine as well.
So guys, thanks so much for coming on and we
appreciate you taking all of the questions and
putting together some stuff to talk about and
get people ready to go for field day this weekend.
Thank you very much, Neil, for the opportunity.
Gonna be an exciting time, Neil. Thousands of
hams are gonna be engaged. These are the people
that don't necessarily engage socially an amateur
radio any other time of the year. Maybe they're
housebound, you know, they're older hams now
who just don't have necessarily the opportunity
to get out, but they still find their way to
Field Day. And I've been working on Field Day
as the program has gone on because I'm doing
the three hour long Windows update on the laptop.
We've been multitasking tonight. We let the windows
update run and so we're for a logging computer
ready to go. So looking forward to it. I'll be
operating under K9IU's auspices this weekend
at field day. We'll be over at the Indiana University
campus doing that with the high school group
as well and some others. Hopefully, we'll hear
you all on the air. So that is a wrap for this
week's edition of HamTalk Live. Thanks to my
guests, Bart Yonkey, W9JJ, David Isker, N1RSN,
and everybody out there in cyberspace for listening
and for writing in tonight. And invite you all
back next Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time.
Marty Soloway, KC1CWF, will be here with... some
of the Baker Island, the expedition team, and
if everything gets set up right, yes, we're going
to come to you live from Baker Island next week.
So you don't want to miss that and a list of
our upcoming guests. as always at HamTalkLive
.com. So I'm going to let you all go. Thanks
for staying a little longer tonight. And this
is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375. Have a great
field day weekend. And as always, may the good
DX be yours.