Thanks to all who participated in Field Day, our club's premier annual operating event! Field Day is Amateur Radio's Annual exercise and public demonstration of emergency communications response capabilities. Radio amateurs throughout North America participate in ARRL Field Day each year during the last full weekend of June. We encourage all radio amateurs and the general public to come and experience the joy and thrill of amateur radio. Anyone with or without an FCC license can Get on the Air on our HF and VHF stations as General, Advanced and Amateur Extra class control operators will be on site. Drop-ins are welcome.
Email contact@n6na.org and join us!
Members who operated from home please send us a copy of your own ARRL FD Entry PDF File to compete for Club Awards and to contribute to our total club score.
2021 Field Day Report
River City ARCS finally convened again in VFW Fair Oaks to hold the FD 2021 with many visitors who came by to visit. The team captain this year was Tom W6BS. Good job Tom for leading the group and bringing in-person FD into fruition! Marty K9MEG is the safety officer. The multi-element beam antenna finally made it up on the air again after some major repair, hauling, and assembly. Unfortunately, it did not perform as expected on all the bands it is supposed to work on . Good thing there is a back-up Super Antenna YP3 by Bob N6PGQ and it saved the day. Did any member find the missing Craftsman 1⁄2” wrench? That tool has enormous functional and sentimental value and Bob is not very happy about losing it. A pocket foldable pliers served to dismantle the classic antenna so everybody can go home.
Field Day is every ham family’s annual get-together or celebratory meeting. We all try to find time, squeeze that extra adrenaline, and maybe real dollar amounts to carry out everything it takes to be on the air. It is a wide spectrum of goals any ham can look into and find a suitable target. Since fun spells the common denominator of all of these undertakings, it is something everyone looks forward to again in the coming years. After all, what’s over 100 years of amateur radio history if not for the unspeakable fun this hobby and service entails?
Jojo Melendres, KN6HTD
Field Day is open to all radio amateurs in the areas covered by the ARRL/RAC Field Organizations (US and Canada) and other countries within IARU Region 2. DX stations residing in other regions may be contacted for credit, but are not eligible to submit entries.
Each claimed contact must include contemporaneous direct initiation by the operator on both sides of the contact.
Early Set Up Friday PM
Saturday Set Up starts at 7 AM
Field Day operation starts promptly at 11:00 am PDT on Sat., June 26.
CHAT SET UP (Optional): River City ARCS will use Discord software for online chat among participants during Field Day. Those who plan to join our Discord chat should click here now to join our N6NA Discord Chat Group (https://discord.gg/7agqmKj). Visit the discord.com website and register your call sign as a user ID and choose a password. You may join our N6NA Discord chat group either through an internet browser or you may download the Discord app on your home computer or smartphone. Test it before Field Day and you should be good to go. On Saturday morning June 26th all participants who can should check-in via Discord chat before 10:00 AM PDT.
We may also chat with each other via our 145.25 MHz N6NA repeater, but contacts through the repeater do not count for Field Day points.
OPERATING: For full details and Bonus point rules read the 2021 Field Day Packet. You may contact other stations once on phone, once on CW (Morse code) and once on one digital mode on each band. You must log the other station's correct exchange information for the contact to be valid. This includes the station call sign, the number of transmitters at the site and class of operation, and the ARRL section.
Learn and use the ITU phonetic alphabet (Alpha for "A", Bravo for "B", etc) when needed for clarity, and only ask for repeats of (or provide) information that was not copied correctly the first time.
If you operate from home, use your own call sign and Field Day exchange. Your exchange information will include the total number of transmitters you operate simultaneously, your class (class "D" when operating in at home on commercial power or class "E" on 100% emergency power), and your ARRL section "Sierra Victor" (SV for Sacramento Valley). For example, if you operate one transmitter at a time, your exchange for a home station on commercial power would be “One Delta Sierra Victor” on voice or “1D SV” on CW and digital modes, or "One Echo Sierra Victor" or "1E SV" on emergency power.
| Here is an example of a typical Field Day phone exchange (Home stations use your own callsign instead of N6NA):
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Here is a typical Field Day CW or digital exchange (Home stations use your own call sign instead of N6NA):
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Field Day contacts on all modes and all bands are valid (except no WARC bands and no repeater contacts). See our Field Day Primer for more details. Please take photos of your Field Day operation and send them to contact@n6na.org to share with our club.
LOGGING: Logging at our Field Day site will be via N3FJP Field Day Log on networked computers.
At your home station you may choose to keep a paper log of your Field Day contacts and exchanges or use a logging program like the N3FJP Field Day Log or the freeware N1MM Logger. If you plan to use the N3FJP software and operate class "1D" from your home on commercial power, you will need to download and install version 6.5 of that software from their website. N3FJP Field Day Log requires a one-time $8.99 activation fee.
ContestolineScore.com (Optional): We plan to collect and display our live results in real time via the ContestonlineScore.com website. If you are able, we encourage you to register on Contestonlinecsore.com with your call sign as your login name and choose a password. Once you log onto ContestonlineScore.com, refer to the Help Section to set up your internet browser to auto-update your live results every 3 minutes and chart it under our club: River City ARCS with our team name N6NA. We will be working as a Club: River City ARCS as an aggregate team of individual call sign users. We will submit our logs individually and indicate you are a member of a Team N6NA.
DINNER: We will break around 6 pm Saturday for a dinner and Social Hour. Any club members who plan to attend the picnic should please RSVP with the number in their party.
TAKE DOWN: Field Day concludes at 11:00 am PDT on Sunday morning, June 27.
Click here to join the ARRL Field Day Facebook Group. Share a Live Stream during Field Day and post your plans, tips and tricks to a successful Field Day. When posting content from Field Day, use hashtag #ARRLFD on all social media to receive 100 bonus points!
Use the Field Day Locator to indicate your publicly accessible Field Day set-up on http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator.
Important! The Field Day Locator is intended to show public Field Day sites that members of the public and media can visit. If you're going to be operating a private home station, don't add it to the map!
Upon completion of Field Day, participants will submit individual Field Day Entries to ARRL indicating "River City AR Comms Soc" as the club name via the web app at http://field-day.arrl.org/fdentry.php (or via US Mail postmarked by Tuesday, July 28, 2021). ARRL will sent an email confirmation and listed participating call signs on http://field-day.arrl.org/fdentriesrcvd.php
Club Member Awards RCARCS member Field Day participants can compete for Club Awards (ARRL Field Day Hats, Pins, T-Shirts and DX Engineering Gift Certificates) in the categories below. Winners will be announced at our July meeting.- Most Contacts Phone
- Most Contacts CW
- Most Contacts Digital
- Rookie Field Day Operator
- Best Photo for Field Day
- Top 3 Scores overall
- Special Recognition Prize
Any questions? Please direct any questions you may have via email to contact@n6na.org.
