The Spark Gap

Field Day is ham radio's open house. Every June, more than 40,000 hams throughout North America set up temporary transmitting stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio's science, skill and service to our communities and our nation. It combines public service, emergency preparedness, community outreach, and technical skills all in a single event. Field Day has been an annual event since 1933 and remains the most popular event in ham radio.

Hams will set up and operate field radio stations to contact other hams throughout the US and Canada over a 24 hour period. If you are a newly licensed operator, be sure to make this event. You will see and have an opportunity to communicate on different modes of operation.

Licensed Amateur Radio Operators in Lauderdale and surrounding counties or anyone wanting to learn more about this exciting and important means of emergency communication are invited. MARC Field day setup will begin on Saturday morning, June 24th at Bonita Lakes Park, Pavilion #2 (Coots Crossing).

Bring the family for fun and fellowship. This year we invite you to bring your own food and drinks. See map below for Field Day location.

The Atlantic hurricane season is June to November, with the peak season from mid-August to late October. On average there are 6 hurricanes, three which are categorized as “major,” each year. History provides important examples of the potentially dangerous impact hurricanes can have and the need to be prepared.

Because I teach amateur radio classes and publish a series of popular amateur radio license study guides (www.kb6nu.com/study-guides/), I often get kudos for "growing the ranks." In fact, Gordon West, WB6NOA, told me this just last week, when he stopped by the booth I was in at the Dayton Hamvention. I’m paraphrasing a little, but after telling me that he’s heard good things about my study guides, he said something like, “You’re doing good work in helping get more people into ham radio.”

People say that as if this is—or should be—the ultimate goal of teaching a license class. While this may be one of the goals, if that’s your primary goal, I think that you’re barking up the wrong tree.
In a way, creating more hams is selfish. If there are more licensed amateur radio operators, they say, then amateur radio will have more political clout with the FCC and with Congress, making it easier to pass legislation like the Amateur Radio Parity Act. While this may certainly help the new ham down the line, its main thrust is to reduce restrictions on those who are currently hams.

My goal in teaching amateur radio classes isn’t to create more hams. Instead, my goal is to help more people have fun with ham radio. The first step in helping people have fun with ham radio is, of course, helping them get their license. I do that by publishing my study guides and teaching ham classes.

The next step, and I’m only really getting started on this right now, is to help people learn what they need to know to become better ham radio operators. That’s why I got a little excited when I saw the article, “Making a Good hobby Better Through Post-Licensing Enrichment” by Tim Busch, N0CKR in the latest issue of Radio Waves, the ARRL’s email newsletter for amateur radio instructors.
In the article, Tim describes several activities that his club encourages, including a “new ham net” and the Field Day GOTA station, but he also details a program of “mini classes” that will teach specific skills related to ham radio. These include:

Programming Radios and Getting on the Air
Soldering 101
Multimeter 101
Build and Use a Roll-Up J-Pole Antenna
Build and Use a Satellite Antenna
Foxhunts
Operating Digital Modes: IRLP, AllStar, D-Star, EchoLink, etc.
Remote Operation
Software-Defined Radios
Transitioning from VHF/UHF to HF Operating
Chasing Awards
Learn CW
Contesting

Tim writes, “Each class is intended to be no more than two hours at a sitting, so they can be held before a monthly club meeting. The variety of subject matter allows many club members to get involved in leading a topic. Materials kits are prepared in advance, so students walk away with practical items they can use at home.”
I think this is a great set of classes, and I plan to try some of these in the fall. A couple of other topics that occur to me are:

Helping new hams—and old hams—have more fun with amateur radio is a lot more satisfying to me than just “growing the ranks.” It would be nice to say that we have a million licensed radio amateurs in the U.S., but I think it would be a lot more valuable to the hobby to say that a larger percentage of licensed hams were active and enjoying ham radio. I know that, for me, increasing the number of active, engaged hams would be more personally satisfying than simply creating a lot of new licensees.

When he's not working on helping new hams, Dan operates CW on the HF bands and blogs about amateur radio at KB6NU.Com. If you have a good idea for a new ham “mini class,” e-mail him at cwgeek@kb6nu.com.

MARC FIELD DAY 2017