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 his year's ARRL Field Day
marks the 20th consecutive appearance of PARC at Kelly Butte
Park, and the 21st Field Day of the modern era of the club.
We have managed to score some club milestones over the years,
some of them memorable, some of them not so. It started
at Kelly Butte because of some arrangements that were made between
us and the City of Portland for staffing the Emergency Operations
Center that used to be located there. It helped immensely
that Dick Monroe, K8JKI, was in a high place in Emergency Services
at the time. More recently, we have provided the city
with an excuse to keep up the facility, now that the EOC has
been decommissioned there.
Field Day is a combination
of emergency preparedness exercise, social gathering and operating
contest to see how many stations can be worked in a 24-hour period.
Some years, we've been able to concentrate on a high score,
while some years, Murphy and professional or health considerations
among individuals have cut into that effort.
On the social front, there have been varying attempts at arranging
some sort of potluck feeding frenzy during the early evening
on Saturday night. Some years are more organized than
others, but it's an opportunity for club members and their families
(and visitors) to get together socially and kick back.
AL7W's wife, Sue Sargent, has offered to coordinate the potluck
for this year, so that we don't get 15 people bringing parboiled
skeet or pickled trout in aspic. She can be reached at
503-777-1032 or at sarge@zzz.com.
On the operating front, there have been two meetings to
coordinate who's bringing what radios, or what antennas we're
going to fling into the trees for what bands. We have tentative
plans to equip stations, although additional gear never hurts.
Given that digital has equal standing with CW and Phone (and
is the equal of CW for scoring purposes), we may consider raising
the number of simultaneous transmitters on the air this year
to accommodate PSK31 more fully than we did last year. Most
CW and Digital operations will be computer-generated again, and
we will be computer logging all operations again (it makes keeping
the total log a lot easier, and we don't lose stuff that falls
in the cracks).
What and When:
As of Friday
afternoon, June 27, at 1300, we can commence putting up our antennas.
Typically, we get a couple of archers up there to get lines
up over tree limbs, and a few roustabouts to put up a tower or
2 (we can't use the city's 250 footer, doggone it). Be
prepared for poison oak and other wonderful things if you go
into the woods; a bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap to shower with
is useful, afterwards.
Saturday morning at 1100, the operating begins. There will
be a couple of stations on CW, 1 or 2 on HF SSB, and possibly
something on VHF and Satellite. We are hoping to have a
Get On The Air station set up this year, for new hams and those
who never operate. We go all night with our festivities.
Dinner (the aforementioned potluck) happens around 6:30 in the
evening. Expect visits from the local Media.... Field Day
is frequently on a slow news day, and they send crews out in
droves.
We even had a visit one year from OPB (never mind that the President
of the club that year was KA7ZDD, who worked for them as a
production
engineer). Things end operationally at 1100 on Sunday
morning, and the antennas come down at that time. Typically,
we leave the park in better shape than when we found it on Friday.
Again, we invite people to camp out up there on Friday night,
so as to provide security for the antennas and gear that are
up there. PARC has found a goodly number of future leaders
among the hams that have come up to Field Day. We welcome
one and all to come up and join us!
-W7LT |
lections for club officers and
directors and preparation for Field Day will be the focus of the
June general meeting. The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m., Friday,
June 20, in the auditorium on the lower level of One Liberty
Center, 650 N.E. Holladay Street, Portland, Oregon. Please
enter at the south side of the building. Refreshments will be
served.