[Ipg-smz] ARRL Field Day

[Tom Henderson]

Fellow Guilders,

As the hamsters in the group know, this weekend ham radio operators 
across the continent will be going outside to field locations, squinting 
all the way, to setup radios for the annual ARRL Field Day. My club, the 
Bloomington Amateur Radio Club, will be participating.

We'll make contacts mostly in the US and Canada, but not exclusively. We 
use five Windows laptops running an app called N1MM, all nicely 
networked together running power from a huge diesel generator, along 
with some solar-only stations. It's a 24hr long frenzy of making 
contacts via a variety of methods. It tests our rapid-response skills, 
endurance, and how many kinds of corn chips we can avoid during the 
24hrs. We'll use voice, ancient Morse code, digital (remember modems?), 
and if we run out of sun and diesel, signal flags. Just kidding.

Our club has a team of ten members, plus many visitors, coming to the 
event. Our callsign for the club is K9DIY. Many thousands of operators 
will be participating in the event, the biggest radio field day on 
earth. The five stations we'll use cost an average of less than $800 ea, 
some of them are ancient and their antennas and gear cost half or less 
than that, including mine-- which does not include the solar panels and 
deep cell batteries, etc.

And, we're having a pitch-in dinner/BBQ, along with pizza donated by a 
local pizza place when we finally tear it all down and pack it up.

I know of eight Guilders that are licensed amateur radio operators. Hope 
to hear you on the air!

73 Tom W9YW

p.s.  I'm using my own call for our Get-On-The-Air station, and "73" 
means "regards".

-- 
Tom Henderson
ExtremeLabs, Inc.
+1 317 250 4646
Twitter: @extremelabs
Skype: extremelabsinc