The reason you give are the same reason our club has. Our site is a large shelter house that provides good protection during strong storms.
In Tennessee it does get pretty hot and humid when we shut down. At one time we set up on Friday afternoon , some spent the night playing radio, and by Sunday morning tempers were getting very short when we tore down. As FD coordinator I put an end to the Friday set up. Even if we set up on Saturday morning we still had a couple of hours waiting for the 1 PM start.
We're not getting any younger and its harder for us old farts to tolerate the heat.
Well, I'll start by saying we don't do Field Day to be competitive. We don't treat it as a contest.
If we end up somewhere in the middle of the pack then we feel we did pretty well.
We usually end up with 500-600 contacts, and we score almost all of the available bonus points.
For us, it's about training, fellowship, camaraderie, and having fun. The training is kept kind of
subtle, but the rest of it isn't. Because let's face it, if you asked everyone to come out to work
on a big disaster preparedness drill, most people would not show up. Same with doing a serious
contest operation. But when you emphasize the other aspects listed above, you end up with
plenty of people. Because everyone wants to have fun.
We usually start setup around 9AM on Saturday. We have to get permits from the local
park district for the overnight stay. And they won't issue a permit for more than one overnight
period at a time. Lots of people help with setup, and everything is all setup and ready to roll
by about lunch time. Then we have lunch. Cooked on site, of course. Because the food is one
of the reasons we get people to come out and do Field Day. We eat really well at Field Day,
by design. Anyways, once lunch is over, we have a brief meeting for all the operators to make
sure everyone knows what the correct exchange will be, then everyone heads for their rigs.
In fact, there is a certain park ranger who specifically requests being assigned to work second
shift on that weekend, probably because we feed him when he comes to visit. We've been using
this particular park location for the last three years. And we always end up with a visit from
the same park ranger every year. Go figure. He says he's just checking to make sure we're doing
OK, and he makes sure we have his personal cell phone number, "just in case". I figure it's kind
of like leaving cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve.
Everyone starts making contacts at exactly 2PM (1800Z), and away we go.
Breakfast on Sunday morning is worth staying up to play radio all night. It's that special.
Sausage and eggs, bacon, hash browns, and of course biscuits and sausage gravy are
the standard fare. All cooked outside, and not on a stove. My wife loves cooking
outdoors, and especially for a crowd. She'd prefer an open wood fire, but the parks don't
permit that. So she compromises and uses charcoal. She has lots of helpers. And then
there is Andy's famous chili. He usually makes up about a 7 gallon batch, and brings it
with him in a giant electric roasting pan. It as 4 different kinds of meat in it (Bacon,
Pork, ground beef, and venison), and 6 or 7 kinds of beans. It's best described as
"sweet heat", and there is very little left by Sunday. We dedicate one generator to
keeping the coffee urn and roasting pan going.
Although in the past the weather was kind of brutal, the weather has been pretty good
to us for the past few years. It rained quite a bit last year, but there was about an 8
hour break where it didn't rain, so the tents and canopies dried out well before we
packed everything up. The rain started up again around 3PM on Sunday, but by then
we were all back home so it didn't matter. This year the weather was simply gorgeous
though. The only problem was that it got pretty chilly overnight on Saturday night.
Down into the high 50s. I actually packed a heavy coat for the overnight hours.
When we're about to leave for home, the only universal comment from everyone is,
"It's a shame we only do this once a year." A good time is generally had by all. The
size of the group seems to grow every year. And people are already making plans to
do it again next June.