Class F Pre-Field Day Event

[KASSY]

Inviting an official in from a served agency to hear someone repeating "we are 1F SC", endlessly, in no way shows them what Amateur Radio communications can offer.  Allowing them to interact with other officials, in a conversational environment, can show them that information can be passed reliably from station to station and make them more comfortable with Amateur Radio.

I am in no way proposing that this event is a communication exercise intended to "stress" the system or provide meaningful training.

To "Kassy"

The question that keeps popping into my mind - if you are not operating a class "F" station, why is this a concern at all for you?

Because I DO operate in emergency conditions and I DO operate from EOCs under those conditions and I think we NEED something like FD to truly stress the operators.  FD exists to serve that purpose, why not use it for that purpose?  I just don't happen to do FD from an EOC.  I do FD from THE FIELD, because it is the only large-scale FIELD training event available.  And I think that matters.

It drives me crazy that we do these completely fake "training" events.  Messages get passed, nobody's checking for accuracy, incredibly sloppy net control procedures, tactical callsigns used without the legal addition of ham callsigns...lots of things done wrong, lots of messages that did not get through.  And nobody publishes the "score".  Nobody says "this station failed to achieve a passing score".  And we just check the box, "Did the emergency exercise.  Done."

That's why.  Because I think it matters.

- k

[N2EY]

To Kassy: GREAT ANSWER!

I will add this:

What Amateur Radio looks like to non-hams matters to all of us. It's a lot better for  the "served agencies" to see our exercises and demos as being reasonably realistic and relevant to what they need.

73 de Jim, N2EY

[KG4RUL]

To Kassy and N2EY:

Well, I have seen your comments and the event will go on as scheduled and in the format specified.  I see value in the event and I have had positive responses from a number of operators.  IF either of you care to participate from a Class F station, at an EOC, you will be welcome.

[KG4RUL]

Due to the very low response, seven positives out of 164 E-Mail inquiries, I have decided to drop the event.  With so few stations, the chances of finding a station for invited officials is so low that it is better to not do rather than disappoint.

[AI4BJ]

Two very late comments:


1) Your math was off by a factor of 10. Approximately 7% (not 0.7%) of participating stations were class F.

2) Field Day incorporates a list of rules and an elaborate scoring system, and the results are published in QST in descending total points order, so to try to assert that it is NOT a contest is just silly. The point is that it is MORE than just a contest. Some groups focus entirely on the contest aspect, while others ignore the contest aspect completely, or give it limited emphasis. That's the genuis of Field Day!

73,
Mark  AI4BJ