[aprssig] CQ FD shame on you

[Greg D.]

You'd rather, perhaps, that we get points awarded by how much we suffered?

Participation in Field Day, as currently defined, is massively successful.  When every band, every satellite, and every mode light up with activity for 24 hours, bringing hams and the general public out of their cloisters and together in conversation, that's good enough for me.  

For the pain part, that's what Simulated Emergency drills and other locally and regionally relevant activities are for.

We need activities on both levels.

Greg  KO6TH


Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:07:12 -0400
From: wes at ai4px.com
To: aprssig at tapr.org; bruninga at usna.edu
Subject: Re: [aprssig] CQ FD shame on you

Unfortunately, FD isn't about emergency preparedness.  It's about POINTS.  My interest wained when I found that the most important subject for FD was who's bringing the BBQ and who's running the grill.  Let's see.... we setup the 80 dipole between "that" tree and "that" tree because that's the way we've done it for the past 15 years.  Also, let's not forget that operating on emergency power only applies to the radios, not the ceiling fans in the screened-in pavillion.   I realize that it sounds like I'm way off subject here, but the point is that once the fuddy duddies are only interested in points, the innovators find other innovative ways ot spend their time and all you are left with is fewer and fewer people at field day.  Back in 1998-99 time frame I did satellite contacts and aprs for FD and only one or two people even cared.  This year I didn't even realize it was field day.

 
I wish the ARRL would award some carrot to people for trying to be innovative, but alas they don't (after how many years of us asking?)  Yeah, I'm about as optimistic of this as I am my congress critter returning my phone calls.

Wes




On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 20:45, Bob Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:

Well, 25,000 APRS operators in the USA, and I saw a total of FOUR (4) sending out CQ FD (via the CQSRVR).  I made only a dozen field day contacts out of 12 hours operating.


This is the worst APRS performance at Field Day I have ever seen.  Im surrounded by trackers, WX stations, and houses with the lights on and nobody home.

My count of 4 comes from the CQSRVR that responds to your login by saying how many other CQ FD stations it forwared your message to.  In my case... 4!  In the entire country, only 4 stations were attempting to make CQ FD contacts using the system designed to make it happen.


And since one remains automitically subscribed for 12 hours or more after sending only one CQ message, it would seem to me that that was pretty much it.

FOrtunately a few people were out driving around with TWO-WAY APRS and I was able to get some 8 other LIVE HUMAN messages.


Even if you were not participating in field day, I'm sure you were out driving around sometime over the weekend...  couldnt you at least LOOK at your mobile radio screen and see any FD stations and simply hit MSG button to give someone a contact?  Is it asking to much?


Of course, only 10% of APRS users are on this sig, but all it takes is ONE PERSON per METRO area to have sent a CQ, and then that station would have gotten ALL THE OTHER CQS from all the other areas.  Then ANYONE in that metro area could have seen all those responses, and even if he did not know how CQSRVR works, he would STILL have seen all the callsigns and could have joined in with messages...


Sheesh...
Bob, WB4APR

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