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Comment by kbaker | Hacker News Reader

If you are at all interested in Amateur Radio, next weekend (June 25-26) check out a Field Day site close by! http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator

Field Day is meant to be a test of emergency communications preparedness, where the idea is that hams from all over (the US at least) set up operation off-the-grid, and attempt to make contact with as many stations as possible.

This is a great way to meet the local Ham community, as it is one of the biggest social/public events in Amateur Radio. It's too bad they didn't mention it in the article...

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True! There are all sorts of ways people do field day. A few tips for someone planning to follow kbaker's advice:

- Check out a few field day setups, different groups have different goals and culture, and you may connect with one more than another.

- Stick around a while. Many hams will stop by the local field day and hang out for a bit. Someone who is interested in something that you want to learn about might stop by at any minute.

- Give it a try, you can operate the gear with permission from one of the licensed operators.

- Definitely check out CW (morse code). It's amazing that it's still in use but it's lots of fun.

> - Definitely check out CW (morse code). It's amazing that it's still in use but it's lots of fun.

Morse is one of those "unreasonably effective" technologies.

* Short of very advanced (and likewise constrained) digital methods, it's the king of long distance.

* You can whack together a radio out of $10 of scrap bits.

* You can't buy it. It's not a circuit or a thing. It's a skill that you need to learn and it takes way more than just learning the alphabet.

Yes, not to mention that doing it results in a very unique sort of flow/zen state. Highly addictive :)

Thanks for the info! I just got my license recently but have been getting a slow start. I'll have to check this out

I have the impression it's less developed in Europe. Am I wrong ?

It's just one part of amateur radio, but Europe's HAMNET (mentioned in the article https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC2014-TheEuropeanHAMNET-DG8NGN.pd... ) is a lot more developed than what we have in the US.

I think Field Day is more of a US thing. It is really setup around an official contest put on by the ARRL, which gives extra points for operating off-grid, or portable. There are no extra points for international (DX) contacts during Field Day operation though, as opposed to some other contests.

But for Amateur Radio in general, it is a very international organization, with widely different areas of interest.

Radiosport and High Speed Telegraphy competitions are very big in Europe, and the demographic in EU is a bit younger than in the US:

Some links:

http://www.rufzxp.net/toplist.htm

and

http://www.wwyc.net/?p=members

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