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or go to hamstation .com. evening everyone this
is ham talk live episode number 19 field day
q &a with Sean Cutsco KX 9x recorded live on
Thursday June 23 2016 I'm your host Neil Rapp
WB 9 PPG and thanks for tuning in to this episode
of ham talk live this evening Sean Cutsco KX
9x is here from the American Radio Relay League
And he's going to talk all about field day, so
we'll take your calls live in just a few minutes.
Last week on the show, Dan Romanchuk KB6NU was
here to talk about the new extra class license
test pool and teaching one day and weekend technician
classes. If you missed that show, you can listen
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is at HamTalkLive. Next, Sean Cutsco, KX9X on
the topic of field day. right after this word
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night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right here on HamTalkLive
.com. And if you missed the show, you can download
the podcast from the website and most popular
podcasting websites. Sean Kutzko, KX9X is the
former contest manager and currently the media
and public relations manager at the American
Radio Relay League or ARRL, the National Association
for Amateur Radio. Sean enjoys portable operations,
satellites and QRP the most at this time. He's
an avid DXer and has had the chance to be the
DX several times. Sean was licensed in 1982 and
is originally from central Illinois, actually
not too far away from me, and attended the nearby
University of Illinois. Sean has been on the
ARRL staff since 2007 and notably he's the world
famous drummer. For the world famous spurious
emissions ban. So Sean Welcome to ham talk live.
Hey Neil, how you doing? I'm doing excellent
Thank you so much for for coming on. We've got
two days until field day. So hopefully everybody
has that some of their plans made at least and
Any last -minute details? Hopefully we can help
them out with that tonight. Oh, I hope so So
tonight we want to focus on field day. So we're
going to try to limit our discussion to that
But first I I have to tell this story about how
I met Sean I had the opportunity to to go to
ARRL headquarters several years ago for the Teachers
Institute and the Teachers Institute is by far
the best professional development I've ever been
to as an educator. It was an entire week in the
conference room out at league headquarters and
we went through all kinds of stuff to show the
kids, to build for the kids, to have them build,
to do all these things. And it was just the best
thing. And I absolutely loved being out in Newington
because on lunch I could sneak over across the
parking lot to W1AW and operate for a while.
That's always a big attraction. But yeah, right
across from the conference room in a little hallway,
there's this little office. And and I've been
in your new office at one point Before you you
had that position. So I know the office space
is is much nicer now I'm thinking about renting
some of it out as a putting green Really? He's
got just a little bit bigger office than the
one he used to have but anyway, yeah, he had
one of his old, Illinois Ham radio license plates
hanging up on on the wall and and so every day
when we took a break I would go out in the hall
and I kept seeing kx9x on on the license plate
and I'm like Now wait a minute. I know kx9x.
That's not him And I'm like I'm gonna go talk
to this guy at some point because when I was
when I was a Young ham, you know in my well preteens
One of the things that I would do is I was really
really into two meter FM DX, which is kind of
strange I guess but we had we had a boomer up
and There's about 50 feet high and an amplifier
and everything and I was always trying to see
what repeaters I could get and I made little
index cards and Had them in this little box and
I would write down the frequency in the offset
you know and the call sign and the location of
every repeater I had ever hit and Then I would
make notes on When I could get it and when I
couldn't and one of the repeaters that I Found
that I could only get some times was one in Seymour,
Indiana Which is actually just down the road
for me now where I live now And the Seymour Indiana
repeater was on 145 .43 and it was the KX9X repeater.
And so I just always heard that call sign. And
so I talked to the guy a lot. Whenever I would
call in, he was usually the guy around that would
give me a signal to report. And so I got to know
him fairly well on the repeater. and he passed
away and the repeater actually went silent for
a long time. Finally they reorganized and brought
it back up. So Sean got ahold of that call and
so I duck into his office during break and he
has no idea who I am and I go in there and say,
where'd you get that call sign? And I got that
when the vanity program first up it opened up
in November of 96 and I just I chose it because
I like the symmetry of it Yeah, it's a great
call sign. Mm -hmm. I had no idea that the person
who owned it before me I did a little bit of
research into the the gentleman who had the call
before me But I had no idea that he had a repeater
So the story that you just told is a new story
to me. So thanks for sharing that. I always like
I always like finding out, you know, researching
calls because, you know, the vanity program has
been in play for so long now. It's it's it's
interesting to track the history of how some
of these call signs have have come come come
along and how they've evolved and who's picked
them up. Well, I I went out on a search this
afternoon when I got home. and was trying to
find the guy's name, and I finally found, I think
a 1983 call book online, and I finally found
it. It was Leroy Woodard from Seymour, Indiana,
KX9X. So that's the story of meeting Sean, and
every time I've seen him since, I always make
it a point to say hi. And the rest is history.
And the things have been great ever since. Absolutely.
So you started out in your little bitty office
as the contest branch manager. That's true. And
then recently you decided to take on the big
shoes of the public relations manager. That is
true. I was promoted if you will in 2013 after
the previous PR manager Alan Pitts retired and
I took over at that point in time and It's been
a lot of fun because I've as contest branch manager
you focus primarily on contesting. That's what
that job is But as PR manager you have to learn
about all facets of ham radio and you have to
promote the hobby in general and that has been
a great education for me and it has been Wonderful
to meet folks from all across the hobby all all
different interests and and I really couldn't
be happier. It's just great Yeah, and and you're
the perfect person to have on tonight because
you you've been in that contest manager seat
For many years and then now you're this the big
PR guy So it just made total sense to to ask
you to come on the show. So we're so glad that
That you're here Before we dig in here. Why don't
you share? Your story about your very first Oh
God my first field day. Oh goodness. Okay Well,
let's see. I got licensed in April of 82, 1982.
I took my novice test thanks to the University
of Illinois club, the Sinton Amateur Radio Club,
W9YAH. Hello to anybody at the club if they're
listening tonight. And I was asked by the club
members in Champaign, Illinois, if I would be
their novice station. for field day in 1982.
And I said, of course, and I had no idea what
I was getting myself into at that point. A bunch
of college kids hanging out at this place west
of town, west of Champaign -Urbana, in this little
dinky town called Bondville. And there was a
research station there that had an extremely
large uh... antenna that was uh... several telephone
poles in a giant circle and it had an observation
tower uh... like you would find out like a fire
observation tower uh... in uh... in national
parks or something like that that had a you know
you had to climb up to the top of it and it had
this ten by ten room about a hundred and twenty
feet uh... above the above the ground and this
whole area was known as the bird cage and uh...
it was some sort of research facility uh... by
the University of Illinois, I believe. And, and
so they they said, we're going to do field day
from the birdcage, bring your radio with you,
and we'll set up shop in this little 10 by 10
room 120 feet above the Illinois prairie. And
I said, Sure. So I logged my Heath kit HW 101
and that big power supply that it had up these
stairs and got tucked away into the corner and
With the help of the engineering the the engineering
guys the double -e guys from the university.
I threw a giant dipole off the top of this Platform
there was a platform above the 10 by 10 building
on this observation tower and we threw all the
dipoles and wires off the off the top of that
and just a nice array of slopers And they put
me in the corner of the room and they said, okay,
go to it and see how many extra bonus points
you can get us as the novice station this year.
And so I jumped on 40 and 80 in the novice bands
back then and worked what seemed to be a ridiculous,
never -ending pile up of stations in my memory.
And I... I felt completely overwhelmed and I
felt like I was sitting on a de -expedition to
herd island or something like that and in preparation
for Being on tonight's show. I actually dug out
my log book uh... from from field day back in
nineteen eighty two and i counted them all up
and i worked sixty two stations in twenty four
hours i'd been licensed for three months in it
uh... it was the the most activity that i had
on on the radio up to that point and uh... and
it it just seemed uh... like a cacophony of Morse
code at that young point. So 14 years old, 62
contacts in 24 hours, and I just ate it up. It
was thrilling. And there were all kinds of other
mishaps and adventures that took place that only
occur on field day. They asked me to be a human
antenna rotator for an Oscar satellite pass,
and that was a comedy of errors. I had no idea
what I was doing. It was like it was like something
out of the Keystone Cops, you know, and book
pointed over there. Look up higher. No, turn
it this way. And it was just it was terrible.
So but I learned a lot. And and it was it was
the first time that I felt like I was accepted
by. a peer group of people that were older than
me because we were all amateur radio operators
and I was the new kid on the block and they were
actually taking time to welcome me and bring
me into the fold and help show me the ropes a
little bit and and I remember feeling a part
of the group as I fell asleep that night 120
feet above the prairie on on this observation
platform above the room with the wind blowing
Fairly hard. I remember I was I was in a sleeping
bag with a mat with a little inflatable mattress
on the top of it and The wind was blowing so
hard it I actually had to turn my sleeping bag
around 180 degrees so it wouldn't suck me out
So just you know that that memory your first
field day is always just etched into your brain
and I will never forget that Oh, yeah, I I grew
up in Vincennes, Indiana and we had this park
right along the Banks of the Wabash River. It
was called Kimmel Park. And there's this huge
outdoor shelter house that was there. And we
set everything up there. And I always liked it
because, again, I was a novice at the time. And
so I liked it because I got to use extra class
privileges. Oh, yeah. I could, I could. grab
a hold of that microphone instead of my key and
so I did some CW but but I always like to get
a spot on the microphone because that's something
I rarely was able to do um and so I was um elmered
by many really good amateur contesters. I wouldn't
put them in the the class of professional contester,
but boy, they weren't far from it. And, and I
remember Steve Sage N09N, which he was WB9UKH
at the time. And, uh, he was our best operator
and he took me you know and and and showed me
how to make a run and he didn't do search and
pounce he got on a frequency he called and called
and took them as fast as he could go and a lot
of my contesting skills came from that field
day that's That was my first experience with
contesting, and honestly, my only experience
with contesting for many, many years. And so
field day, and we can get into this later, there's
always the debate of, well, is it a contest?
Is it not? To me, it was always a contest. We
were out there and we were going to... see how
many, you know, pileups we could get and how
many we could knock out. And I just had a blast.
Of course, I'm, you know, a five -year -old kid,
six -year -old kid, you know, out there. And
then, you know, I remember a couple years later,
you know, then I had my general and so I could
be in the general band by myself. You know on
that. Oh, yeah, that's a seven. That was a big
deal You know, I could I could be on there by
myself now and so field day is always a very
Very good thing. So we want to take everybody's
questions But before we do that Just give us
a quick rundown of what's changed this year.
What's new? Well, I would say there are probably
two big things that are new this year. We've
got a couple of new bonuses that are available
for Class A stations, the club portable folks
out there. There are two new bonus points that
you can gather. One is a social media bonus.
So if you are using a recognized social media
platform, so that's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
platforms of that nature a defined social media
platform and you send out tweets or status updates
or video or audio of what's going on on your
field day site and to help promote your field
day effort we'll give you a hundred bonus points
for that And we can also talk about later on,
if you want, we can talk about the way that the
social media bonus is also set up to help you
with your public outreach far beyond field day.
It's a critical component of the public relations
messaging that we have available to us in amateur
radio today. And so we're one way that you can.
get your feet wet with that if you are not already
active with social media is you can use the social
media bonus to set up your social media networks
get a hundred bonus points for for getting getting
off the ground with social media and then you
can use all of the skills that you set up and
learn with field day in the real world to help
promote your club or your or your group so that's
a real world application of something you learn
in field day. Field day has been all about that
for a long time. It gives you a space to try
something new and then take it into your amateur
radio career further on down the line. The other
is a safety officer position for clubs. Then
we provide a checklist of good safety practices
that the safety officer can go around and help
ensure that your field day site for your club
or your group is going to be as safe as it possibly
can. and you can earn a hundred points for that
as well. We can talk about that a little bit
if you like. And something else that's noteworthy
is 2016 is of course the year for National Parks
on the Air through the ARRL. This is the 100th
anniversary of the National Park Service and
we have the National Parks on the Air year -long
event that's going on. And I've heard from many
stations that are going to be setting up their
field day site. at a National Parks on the Air
eligible site. There are 484 NPOTA sites for
2016 and I know of several folks that are setting
up for field day at a National Parks on the Air
site. So we can talk about combining field day
and National Parks on the Air if you want to
do that as well. And you know, the irony of that
is that Kimmel Park that I was talking about
where I went to field day the first time is less
than a mile away from the George Rogers Clark
Memorial, which is one of the national parks
on the air. So, yeah, I'm going to try to activate
that one some of this summer myself, run back
down to the old hometown and figure that out.
So anything else new before we take a break?
Oh, I'd say those are the big big ticket items
for 2016. OK, well, some of the new changes have
prompted some questions, so we want to give you
a chance to ask those. So we're going to stop
the interview as much as we can at this point
and give you some time to call in and ask those.
So we're going to take our final break and we'll
be back to take your calls about Field Day with
Sean Kutzko. KX9X right after this message from
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Now, here's more HamTalk Live. Welcome back to
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HamTalkLive .com or check out our Facebook page
and Twitter feed to search HamTalk Live. It's
time for your calls. If you have a question about
field day, this is your chance to get it answered.
give us an audio call on Skype at HamTalk Live
or you can call us by telephone again the number
is 812 -NET -HAM -1 that's 812 -NET -HAM -1 to
ask your field day questions. Sean is here to
answer as many field day questions as he can
and if he can't he'll even get back to you so
please give us a call and maybe it's scoring
a set up some strategy Ask away about field day.
That's what we're here for We actually do have
our first question already from Twitter Katie
W Y7 Y L asks if reddit counts as social media
Wow, that's a great question. Thanks Katie for
the question Reddit is is one of the largest
online communities that's that's out there But
I would not consider it to be a social media
platform the same way that I would say Twitter
or Facebook so I would say that reddit would
not posting your videos or to To reddit would
not necessarily account for the social media
bonus if you can however post your videos to
say Facebook or Twitter or Instagram because
you have that an instant kind of connection you
can establish relationship and friends and followers
with Facebook and Twitter, and you can have interactions
with them that way. So I would say that Reddit
would probably not count for the social media
bonus. Okay, very good. Well, we've got our first
question out of the way. 812 NatTam1 is the phone
number, and we did get a call, but the famous
Skype group calling thing. So we were playing
with that earlier and for some reason tonight
Skype's being Irritable, so if you want to try
calling back give us a call back Sorry, we couldn't
out. Yeah, and here it is again, and it's not
coming up with a group call So if I take it,
it's gonna It's gonna dump Shawn. So maybe you
can you can come on Skype Skype. Yeah. Yeah,
come on Skype cooperate can tweet us or your
question because Skype's not cooperating for
some reason. I'm not sure why. So we'll stand
by here for a minute. Standing by. He's calling
back Extreme Labs, but they're calling back again,
but it's still not working. Because this will
put everybody on hold so I'm sorry try try tweeting
And maybe that'll that'll get your question through
The what's that tweet address on you? Oh, that's
at ham talk live just at ham talk live If you
have a question Now I will mention oh oh we have
it on text actually that will work too, okay?
Let's see. Where did that screen go to? I saw
it. Oh, okay. Very good. I know who this is.
This is Tom Henderson, WU9I. Try again, Tom,
if you can. And if that... Oh, there we go. It
worked. All right. Okay. Tom, are you there?
I'm there Neil. Yeah, you ran into that Skype's
got this issue with if You try to share the contact
details and you haven't finished the sharing
on both sides That oh You'll have to turn down
your speakers speakers, yeah But anyway Skype
has this issue when you share contact details
if both people don't share them Before the call
it doesn't want to do that. So that's that's
what happened with that So anyway, Tom go ahead
and ask your question Yeah, I'm there I'm gonna
hook up earphones because we're looping because
you got right Yeah, you'll just have to listen
to sky just listen to listen to sky when you
call in Hi Tom, how can I help you? Hello He's
getting his headphones, I guess. All right. I
can juggle. I can do a soft shoe. I can play
my card. Yeah, there you go. There you go. We
can do that. Let's wait here just a second for
Tom. Trying to see if I had another quick one
we could throw in here. Yeah, actually, most
common scoring mistakes. What do you think are
the most? Common mistakes when a group submits
their field day report. Well, let's see the first
one that comes to mind I would say is Whether
or not they qualify for the battery bonus And
in order to get the five the the multiplier the
score multiplier of five to your total score
You need to be using a battery for a power source
and you need to be running five watts or less.
Those two conditions must be met in order for
you to qualify for the five times score multiplier
in field day. If you're running, excuse me, if
you're running a generator as your power source
and you're running QRP, that doesn't count. You
would only get a multiplier factor of two. If
you are running a hundred watts and a battery,
that also only counts as a multiplier factor
of two. So in order to get the five times multiplier
score, you must be running both a battery and
you must be running five watts or less. That's
probably the biggest question that we get about
scoring. Okay, very good. Well, I think Tom's
gonna have to call us back it looks like oh wait
No, he just he just typed his question here type
it. Oh, yeah. He says hey Tom We got it right
here. He says which frequencies and which bands
are likely to be more active What about solar
in 12 volts, but not qrp? Okay. Well, we just
talked about uh... 12 volts but not qrp a little
bit ago but we'll touch on that again which uh...
which frequencies in which bands are likely to
be more active well that's that's a very difficult
question to answer i mean uh... a lot of that
is going to depend on propagation to your area
um... clearly the the meat and potatoes bands
for field day are going to be twenty meters and
forty meters uh... the the propagation has just
been terrible lately as anybody who's been uh...
active on a regular basis will know Forty meters
during the day is going to produce a lot of contacts
for you. Certainly, even during the middle of
the day, you'll be able to get out three, four,
five hundred miles if you've got a decent antenna.
Twenty meters is always good to check, but the
thing is... field day is right right near the
solstice. So that opens up the possibilities
for sporadic E propagation. So you always want
to keep an eye on 10 meters and six meters. And
if things get really, really crazy with sporadic
E, you can even see an opening on two meters
as well. So so what I would say that if you're
if you're running a smaller operation. and you've
only got the ability to put up a couple of antennas,
I would consider either one, a multi -band antenna
such as a G5RV or something along those lines
that will allow you the ability to get on multiple
bands based on propagation. uh... and uh... and
try to maximize your uh... your abilities to
use multiple modes if at all possible remember
you can work the same station on the same band
on all three modes phone cw and digital so uh...
if you have the ability to uh... to do uh...
multi modes Even with one or two simple antennas,
you will maximize your ability to stay on the
air longer. And propagation, hopefully, will
not be nearly as much of an issue as the recent
band conditions would suggest. General, okay,
so he has a follow -up question. Tom has a follow
-up question. He says, general related frequencies
or more amateur extra allocations? Okay, so I
would say based on that, The the the bands in
general for field day get packed from top to
bottom So I I don't think that if you're say
for example, you're you're a general class operator
and you're looking to participate As much as
possible in field day I don't think that you're
gonna run out of stations to work in the general
class portion of the band as opposed to finding
Stations hanging out in the extra class portion
of the band. Certainly there are going to be
stations in the extra class portion of every
band that you work, but field day is such a large
event that there's going to be plenty of people
for general class operators to work in the general
allocations. One of the things I like to say
about field day is the most ridiculous question
would be, is the frequency in use? Yes, the frequency
is always in use. Yes, the frequency is in use.
Every last one of them and some of them that
aren't even there. And he's got another question
here. He's got another one here. Do multiple
digital modes work too for same station scoring?
So example, PSK, RIDI, Hell, Hellschreiber, yeah,
all of that. The field day rules state that all
digital modes, PSK, RIDI, Hellschreiber, all
of those different digital modes, those all count
as digital for the scoring purposes of field
day. So for example, if you work a station on
20 meter RIDI and then you hear that station
again on 20 meter PSK for field day, you've already
worked that station using a digital mode. So
that would be a duplicate QSO in that mode. So
all digital modes are lumped together for the
purposes of field day under the general term
digital. Very good and and one that came up in
our field day planning meeting the other day
Was we've always had a safety officer here in
the Bloomington but this is the first year for
that checklist and we had a discussion about
the the defibrillator the AED and you had to
have someone that was trained on that and our
question was you know if we Miss a few overnight
hours, but we have one the rest of the time should
that still count and Why why have the training
if? We don't have one of those defibrillators
available Okay, so the new safety officer bonus
points for Class A stations, for people who are
not familiar with that, if you download the 2016
field day packet, there is an area that describes
the new safety officer multiplier, and there
is a checklist of various things to keep in mind
for the responsibilities of the safety officer.
And we stayed in the rules that the safety officer
multiplier is not something that you just, you
can't simply appoint somebody in your club as
safety officer and give them a wink and a nod
and call that qualifying for your bonus points.
There's a checklist of material that we provide
in the field day packet for things that the safety
officer needs to work on compliance to make sure
that your site is safe. As Neil pointed out,
this is the first year for this particular bonus,
and perhaps we did not make this clear on the
checklist that we provided in the field day packet,
but these items are meant to be general guidelines.
for things that a safety officer should look
for. You do not need to meet every single one
of the items that is on that checklist in order
to qualify for the 100 points safety officer
bonus. You should do due diligence and you should
put forth the best effort that you possibly can.
But if you don't have somebody on your staff
who is AED trained or CPR trained, that is not
going to disqualify. you from the Safety Officer
bonus points. You should do the best job that
you can in ensuring that as many of these items
as possible are checked off for your team. But
you are not required to fulfill every single
one of those items on that checklist in order
to qualify Does that make sense? Very very good.
We have two minutes left and I have like four
questions Tom does say that your local Red Cross
may have an AED course available ours does here
and it's $25 takes an hour. So it's it's certainly
good You know, you certainly want to be as well
prepared as you possibly can be but in terms
of field day if you don't meet every single one
of those requirements that we're not going to
to say you don't qualify for the safety officer
bonus. You should do everything within your you
should do everything reasonable in order to meet
that that that bonus point. Okay, now we're gonna
have to go lightning around here. W9, MSM wants
to know about the field day locator, how to get
to that. Katie also wants you to review the setup
rules real quick. Okay, and then Tom wanted to
know about the analog modes which sideband CW
and digital or the Right. That's those are the
three main modes that we use for scoring purposes
side phone CW and digital those are the three
main Categories for modes and you can work a
station once on each one of those modes per band
Okay, there was a question about the field day
locator. Yes The Field Day Locator is an interface
that we have on Google Maps that you can find
on there. You can find a link to that on our
main website, which is ARRL .org slash Field
Day. And that allows you to post your group's
location on Google Maps. And if you are an operator
that does not have a group to operate Field Day
with, it allows you to see contact information
for Field Day groups that are in your area. So
if you're if you're an operator looking for a
group to operate field day with the field day
locator allows you to scan the country and find
an operating site where that you will be near
and all of the field day locator sites on that
map have contact information for them. Last time
I checked there were over 1 ,500 sites listed
on the field day locator map across the country.
Okay and then Katie's other question was the
setup. rules. Okay, so several years ago, we
had a lot of concern from folks that were in
hotter climates, primarily like the southeast
or the southwest that said 24 hours setup time
was just too much for them to deal with under
the heat in the environments that they were in.
So a few years ago, we extended the setup window
for field day to begin at zero hours. Friday
evening, so that'd be Thursday evening local
time, like eight o 'clock on the East Coast,
and what would that be, five o 'clock on the
West Coast. So within the 42 hours of the setup
window that we have now allotted, every field
day group is permitted 24 hours of setup time
within that 42 hour window between zero hours
Zulu Friday and 1800 hours Zulu Saturday when
field day kicks off. So within that 42 hour stretch,
you have 24 hours of setup time that you can
use in any fashion that you like. Very good.
Well, Sean, we've got a couple of others that
came in by email. I'm just going to forward those
to you. Oh, sure. And we'll get those out. Okay,
and if anybody anybody who's listening didn't
get a time to ask their question by all means
send me an email you can email me at kx9x at
arrl .org I'll happily answer your question as
best as I can before you start setting up for
field day in just a just a few hours All right.
Well, thank you everyone for your questions and
thank you Sean for being with us That's a wrap
for this week's edition of HamTalk Live. I'd
like to thank my guest, Sean Kutsko, KX9X, all
the callers and listeners out there in cyberspace
and invite you all back next Thursday night at
9 p .m. Eastern Time when Valerie Holtzfeld,
NV9L, one of the co -hosts of HamNation, and
an avid DXer will be here to talk about analyzing
your logs and improving your contest scores and
how to work those big DXpeditions. So for now,
this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3. 75 and
may the good DX be yours.