What the HECK?
On the almighty Field Day, I manned a 2 meter SSB rig in the Dade Radio Club's station, W4NVU, the VHF and UHF positions of which saw very, very little activity. I made a grand total of three contacts, one of which was doubled by another operator, tripled by another, and quadrupled by yet another, and then I talked to him again myself. (Insert strange comment about the Rule Of Fives here.) Of the other stations I managed to work (heh, the people who were *awake*), one was in Palm Beach county, and another was in north Fort Lauderdale. During the period of time I was out of the radio room attending to the serious business of dinner, I was told that someone had just talked to a person in Georgia on that radio... I personally think they were smoking ants. (Either that or there was a very, very brief band opening.) But, alas, this comic is dedicated to the Gods Of 2-Meter Propagation.
I had a great time, in general. Ivan, a 13-year old fellow ham, and I went
around the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center wreaking random havoc, and
I met some really cute girls from a scout group who are interested in
becoming fellow looneys^H^H^Hhams. Cool, huh? *evil laugh* ...
Also present was Bryce, a 7-year old boy wonder who was
studying for the Technician class exam. I wish him the best of luck...
I played with the HF radios a while after 4 AM when all the *normal*
operators had gone off to find various areas in which to sleep... Tuning around at complete random in the 40
meter band, I found lots of CW (Morse Code) activity. I mean, MASSIVE
amounts. And sadly, all I could understand was an occasional "CQ"... I
really, really want to learn Morse Code. I'm missing so much complete and
total niftiness, I just know it.
The
Miami Herald's article on Field Day 2001. Or, if the Miami Herald has
purged it in typical RealCities style, read it here.
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