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2025 ARRL Field Day

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Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#31

Post by nlh »

Aloha wrote: post #28
nlh wrote: post #20

If I may wax nostalgic for a moment: I got my original Novice license in 1990 I think (age 12). I was SO excited to participate in my local club’s Field Day outing - but it was a nail biter for my physical license to arrive in the mail in time. I’d somehow gotten the word from the FCC that my license was issued and I got my call sign (KB2NDR) but I was so worried it wouldn’t get to my house in time for the weekend (a…

I got my ticket at 14 in 1996, which led me to a career in the LMR/Telecom world - I have few regrets, my job is close enough to my hobby that it never gets old. I did my extra on a lark without studying for it. I did end up getting a vanity 1x3 along the way, because my original call was awful, both over phonetics and spoken.

Awesome! I went KB2NDR -> AA2KT (because at the time AA was the hot new prefix for Advanced) and then when vanities came out I grabbed a 1x2 that I’d dreamed of getting had I been licensed in the 70s :)

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#32

Post by agent86 »

For anyone interested, ESPN has a HAM Radio club - WE1SPN[1] - and they are live streaming some of their Field Day operations on YouTube[2]. They're not operating overnight, but should be back in the morning eastern US time. If you'd like to make contact the operators are actively monitoring the chat.

[1] - https://we1spn.org/

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZxmubVjd0

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#33

Post by neepi »

ericye16 wrote: post #21

What are some good ways to participate if you don't have an HF radio? (Alternatively, what's a good way to get into HF if you live in a small apartment)? (I already have my license)

Lurk on a web SDR and pick up "virtual QSOs" on that.

HF in small apartment is very difficult.

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#34

Post by aspenmayer »

drmpeg wrote: post #27
aspenmayer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have to do anything nonstandard to assist the team? I find the whole hobby rather interesting and want to get more into it. My grandparents’ old C/Ku band receiver and giant dish led to discovering some trunk feeds and started my curiosity, but most of my radio work has involved WiFi. With WiFi, the use case and radios available without a license somewhat limited what I even thought to try. I guess I’ll see i…

I used the equipment for the same reason, to communicate through the Oscar 10 and 13 satellites at home. Oscar 10 was launched in 1983. At that time, I was living in an apartment. I strung up some smaller yagis on the balcony that fortunately faced towards the southwest. I was able to use some, but not all passes of the satellite. I also used the equipment for terrestrial communications. When I started renting a hous…

> For the 70cm equipment, I participated in VHF/UHF contests with multioperator groups.

Why?

This is a genuine question! I know I am genuinely uninteresting because I don’t know why I would do this if there wasn’t already a built-in audience. This seems adjacent to shouting into the void if one doesn’t already know that there are listeners/receivers. Why does anyone do this at all?

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#35

Post by drmpeg »

aspenmayer wrote: post #34
drmpeg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used the equipment for the same reason, to communicate through the Oscar 10 and 13 satellites at home. Oscar 10 was launched in 1983. At that time, I was living in an apartment. I strung up some smaller yagis on the balcony that fortunately faced towards the southwest. I was able to use some, but not all passes of the satellite. I also used the equipment for terrestrial communications. When I started renting a hous…

> For the 70cm equipment, I participated in VHF/UHF contests with multioperator groups. Why? This is a genuine question! I know I am genuinely uninteresting because I don’t know why I would do this if there wasn’t already a built-in audience. This seems adjacent to shouting into the void if one doesn’t already know that there are listeners/receivers. Why does anyone do this at all?

It's an organized event, just like Field Day. The most popular one is in June, since sporadic-E propagation on 50 MHz is available.

https://www.arrl.org/june-vhf

To be honest, I've pretty much phased out on conventional ham radio. The last time I was out in the field was 2010. These days all my ham radio activity is for SDR (Software Defined Radio) development testing. Here's my Github.

https://github.com/drmpeg

And here's a demo video of my open source ATSC 3.0 transmitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLn5L-k4EPA

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#36

Post by aspenmayer »

drmpeg wrote: post #35
aspenmayer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the 70cm equipment, I participated in VHF/UHF contests with multioperator groups. Why? This is a genuine question! I know I am genuinely uninteresting because I don’t know why I would do this if there wasn’t already a built-in audience. This seems adjacent to shouting into the void if one doesn’t already know that there are listeners/receivers. Why does anyone do this at all?

It's an organized event, just like Field Day. The most popular one is in June, since sporadic-E propagation on 50 MHz is available. https://www.arrl.org/june-vhf To be honest, I've pretty much phased out on conventional ham radio. The last time I was out in the field was 2010. These days all my ham radio activity is for SDR (Software Defined Radio) development testing. Here's my Github. https://github.com/drmpeg And…

Thank you for your response.

I am not active much on GH, but mine is:

https://github.com/aspenmayer

> And here's a demo video of my open source ATSC 3.0 transmitter.

Wasn’t yet following you on Twitter, but was already subbed on YT. I see you, but I don’t recognize you. I will review my history to appreciate further your contribution(s) to my present state.

I am going to DEF CON. I hope to see you there, but if not this year, perhaps sometime soon irl or online.

To circle back, how did this happen:

> > They found out that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite station

Specifically, how did they know

> that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite station

?

Are there people fox hunting recreationally, all the time?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_direction_findin...

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#37

Post by grendelt »

firesteelrain wrote: post #25
aspenmayer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They found out that I had an Oscar 10/13 satellite station Personally, or you had access to one? I am a hobbyist and amateur, so I don’t know how significant this is, but I want to learn!

You can work the ISS fairly easily from your backyard with an Elk or Arrow antenna and full duplex radio like D72A. I have worked astronauts. During COVID, we all used to get on the satellites as part of late night passes at like 1am and make contacts with each other.

You don't even need full duplex. Just an HT that will do "split".

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#38

Post by firesteelrain »

grendelt wrote: post #37
firesteelrain wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can work the ISS fairly easily from your backyard with an Elk or Arrow antenna and full duplex radio like D72A. I have worked astronauts. During COVID, we all used to get on the satellites as part of late night passes at like 1am and make contacts with each other.

You don't even need full duplex. Just an HT that will do "split".

No, you need FD to hear yourself. Anyone who does this every day will tell you FD is the only way. Otherwise you are stepping on people

Re: 2025 ARRL Field Day

#39

Post by asnelt »

ericye16 wrote: post #21

What are some good ways to participate if you don't have an HF radio? (Alternatively, what's a good way to get into HF if you live in a small apartment)? (I already have my license)

I live in a small apartment and do 20m using an attic antenna. Of course, I can't compete with big outdoor antennas. But from Scotland, SSB to mainland Europe and FT8 to the US or the Caribbean is not a problem.

Even if you don't have access to an attic, there are antenna constructions that can work for apartments. Have a look at "ARRL's Small Antennas for Small Spaces" and RSGB's "Stealth Antennas" as starting points.

Alternatively, you could consider a portable solution where you carry a small HF rig and some wire in a backpack. The Yaesu FT-857D is very popular for this as it's small, all bands, all modes and does 100W. If you search for "Yaesu FT-857D backpack" you will find many suggestions. It's not in production anymore but you might find it second hand. For Yaesu, other options include the FT-891 (no VHF/UHF) and the more bulky FT-991A. Icom has the IC-7100, which is also a little more bulky than the FT-857D.

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