Korbin Dallas wrote in message
news
On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 18:20:03 +0000, TOM wrote:

I thought I might share a couple of observations I've made regarding the
Amateur Service; the situation in other locations may differ.

Based upon my adventures last year in Florida when we got pounded by
three
hurricanes I was interested in finding out the utility of my Ham two
meter
transceiver by taking advantage of Field Day (simulated emergency test)
in
June. I raised a collinear with an advertised gain of 7 dB to thirty
feet
and powered my transceiver with a deep cycle battery. Operating on the
'National Simplex Calling Frequency' 146.52 MHz with 75 watts output
power I
attempted to find out how many stations I could contact and the extent
of my
operating range during the test. From my numerous calls I was able to
contact NO ONE! Not one person responded to my Field Day calls
throughout
the day and I heard NO ONE calling Field Day! Not one Ham could I find
operating Field Day on the two meter National Simplex Calling Frequency!

Well FM on 2, 6 or 10m is not used for Field Day, I don't know why but its
not,

However if you had gone to 2M SSB you would of had better luck.
In North Texas we usually work just over 100 stations on 2 quite a few
more on 6m.
In fact 6m was open most of field day and we worked most of the USA that
day.

Over all the years going to field day I can only remember working 1
station on 146.52 on field day and that was a accident as we were using it
as a local calling channel and happened to hear another Field Day group
doing the same thing some 300 miles away.


--
Korbin Dallas
The name was changed to protect the guilty.

Howdy Korbin:

Back decades ago it was not uncommon to operate FD on 2 meters---only
simplex exchanges are allowed (we let the novice operators use the club
call). Of course, back in the 1970's and 80's there was much more 2 meter
activity than now.

I couldn't think of a better frequency that the 'National Simplex Calling
Frequency' to make my FD calls on. As you suggest, 2 meter SSB might have
proven better but I was interested in common FM (base/portable/mobile)
operation.

From the ARRL website:

[snip]
Field Day 2005 Rules

2. Object: To work as many stations as possible on any and all amateur bands
(excluding the 60, 30, 17, and 12-meter bands) and in doing so to learn to
operate in abnormal situations in less than optimal conditions. A premium is
placed on developing skills to meet the challenges of emergency preparedness
as well as to acquaint the general public with the capabilities of Amateur
Radio.
[snip]