51 On Air Transmitters! The Record Breaking Field Day Tactics of W3AO

nothing but imagine in a real emergency setting all that up

 

Yep. In most cases, you only need to set up one station. That's why it's a good idea to have 51 people who have practice setting up one station.

 

Actually, to the contrary. The same core group has been doing this setup, take down, and operating for over two decades, bringing new people on board each year. The equipment comes from members of the crew that know exactly what's needed and can gather it or already have it put away for fast deployment. The crew is trained in the various jobs that need to be done and we can deploy to a site and be on the air quickly without having to figure out what to do. The only thing we don't have handy is the big tent, but there are enough smaller member tents that shelter would not pose a problem if necessary. Thew setup is scalable and indeed often gets changed depending on what class will be entered.

 

Sounds like a contest

 

Show me you dont know the difference between ionizing and non ionizing radiation. Those 50KW AM transmitters I worked on has no effect on cancers and the like.

 

GOOD! Or did you think about the testing that was done and the engineering that was done with the filtering and the ability to bring up so many bands. Some of you just hate it when people try things out of your wheel house. I say BRAVO!

 

(4) Amateur service. A radiocommunication service for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations carried out by amateurs, that is, duly authorized persons interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest.

 

DE KE3Q/W3AO -- W3LPL and K3RA make the case for FD being a contest -- I use a different approach, maybe it's the "ju jitsu approach" to the topic: I agree, it is not a contest. It is an emergency preparedness communications exercise, and happens to have a scoring system, to see how good your team is at emergency prep comms. So some teams score higher at that emergency prep competition. For anyone who cares about the competitive aspect of it.

Second response by me: "Contest" is just a buzzword and is sometimes not well understood or interpreted. I say there are no "contests" as such -- they are all communications exercises. And "get on the air" is a good principle, as in "use it or use it." I remember when the 10-10 club was started -- as I perceived it, the idea was when activity is low on 10, like during low sunspot years but not just then -- we should get more activity on there or the gummint may well sell it to commercial interests or something. Anyone remember when 11M was a ham band? haha.

OK, more than enuf from me, KE3Q Oh, and I do sometimes, often, when anyone is interested, tell the story of how the W3AO FD started -- which also partially explains why we use that call... 73

 

Anyway, fun video. And my XYL, W3AMY, loves FD too. KE3Q (all hams' wives get their license, don't they?? If you love someone you share your interests with them...)

 

FD has QSO points, power multipliers, specific start/end times, no dupes, and published rules and scores. Sounds like a contest to me!

 

14 -IS- a lot! Well done.

 

haha, they're not big towers. They are commonly available military surplus, used in "emcom" by the military. KE3Q

 

And I put up one of the 577 masts in 30 minutes by myself. Not a problem.

 

It truly is. We didn't run 14 TXers the whole time but it was a fun FD