02/09/2022

After taking a few detours over the past couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ARRL Field Day[1] rules are being updated on a permanent basis starting this summer. ARRL conducted a Field Day community survey with invitations propagated far and wide, and direct emails sent to more than 15,000 individuals and ARRL-affiliated clubs. After sorting through, reviewing, and discussing the survey results, the ARRL Programs and Services Committee recommended a number of rule changes for ARRL Field Day, which will take place this year over the June 25 - 26 weekend.

Starting this year, the maximum PEP output for a transmitter used by anyone submitting a Field Day log will be 100 W. The power multiplier of 2 will remain in place, and the high-power category will be removed from the rules. Until this year, the maximum low-power limit had been 150 W for most ARRL-sponsored operating events. The power multiplier will remain at 5 for QRP participants running a maximum of 5 W or less. As previously announced, 100 W is now the low-power category limit for all ARRL and IARU HF Contests, effective January 1, 2022.

A couple of changes instituted initially as accommodations for the COVID-19 pandemic will remain. Class D (Home) stations will continue to be able to earn points for contacts with other Class D stations. The club aggregate scoring change initiated in 2020 as a temporary measure will become part of the permanent rules. In the aggregate scoring plan, the scores of individual stations are combined under the score of a single club.

Another change, involving Rule 7.3.2 Media Publicity, has been modified. Rules to date have offered 100 bonus points for attempting to obtain publicity and demonstrating same. With the ease of posting via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and various other media websites, Field Day participants will now be required to obtain publicity, not just try to do so. Any combination of bona fide media hits would qualify for the bonus points. For example, posting the details of your upcoming or ongoing Field Day activity, or your Field Day results, on a club or news media site, on Facebook, or via Twitter and Instagram would meet the bonus criteria. Photos and videos are encouraged as part of media posts.


[1] http://www.arrl.org/field-day

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Re: Some New Rules Going into Effect this Year for ARRL Field Day
By: ARRL de WD1CKS to QST on Wed Feb 09 2022 01:12 pm

Rule changes ranging from pointless to awful. Just a low-power weekend contest now more than a "Field Day" exercise. I'm hardly one to argue for EmComm, but this is just catering to old guys who don't want to go out into the field anymore.


Andre, WT9X

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Andre,

Rule changes ranging from pointless to awful. Just a low-power weekend contest now more than a "Field Day" exercise. I'm hardly one to argue
for EmComm, but this is just catering to old guys who don't want to go
out into the field anymore.

Contesting never did appeal to me. My niche in the hobby has been doing
nets (running them for over 30 years now), and as of late 2007, becoming
a Volunteer Examiner to do license exam sessions. I've also created a PDF
file from a powerpoint presentation, that I did at a regional hamfest two
years ago called "You're Licensed: Now What??". It contains many items
that are NOT in the Question Pools (i.e. net etiquette), but wish they
were.

I have a copy of that in my D-Rats shared folder, as well as at the hyperlink on my QRZ bio...which also has Excel Spreadsheets of selected
D-Star, Echolink, and D-Rats Nets, in Eastern, Central, Mountain, and
Pacific Time...plus PDF files related to ham radio. One of those files
includes info on UTC Times (the time change coming up Feb. 13 is a real
PITA, net wise), and other net mode URL's. I started the Excel Spreadsheets originally as PDF files, but they became too much work...but started them
as the data at dstarinfo.com was woefully out of date...and I had a terrible time getting my net info updated. Gary, VA3GDZ, was a big help providing the template for the spreadsheet files.

However, with the mad rush of checkins to nets now (I term many of the stations as "Hi, Bye, and QSY" ("Net Control, please checkin [callsign], [name], [location], short time, no traffic"), and moments later, they're
doing the same on another net)...I'm only on the air for nets that I run.

For these "net hoppers", there is no prize, bonus, award, certificate,
etc. for checking into x number of nets in a day. I have to wonder if
they have a life outside of ham radio. Indeed, in the Excel Net List spreadsheets, I noted on one day six nets meeting at the same time!!

Daryl, WX4QZ

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Re: Some New Rules Going into
By: Daryl Stout to Andre on Fri Feb 11 2022 06:16 am

For these "net hoppers", there is no prize, bonus, award, certificate, etc. for checking into x number of nets in a day. I have to wonder if
they have a life outside of ham radio. Indeed, in the Excel Net List spreadsheets, I noted on one day six nets meeting at the same time!!

A lot of guys just seem to need a social outlet. At one club I used to be in, I'd open the meeting with intros and a question, "What have you done with ham radio or electronics this past week?"

Some of the guys literally never did anything other than attend that weekly meeting and maintain thier license renewal fee. Others didn't care anything about operating, learning, teaching others, whatever. They just wanted to get together with people they knew.

It's a big hobby, so I don't expect everyone to like the same things. But we ARRL, and maybe ham radio, is going to slowly die because they're more interested in keeping old men paying fees than they are in getting people under 30 interested in radio.

I know it's an unpleasant thing to say, but I'm so jaded about it all that I'm just not going to bother putting much effort into the radio community until the 70+ crew passes on.


- Andre

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