A couple more days like yesterday and the snow will be gone.

Which means I put the snow blower away and get some room in the garage.

I went to a ham radio club meeting last night and there was a brief mention of the upcoming Field Day.

For some it means getting out into the out of doors part of the world and setting up away from the grid.

For others it means dragging one's gear on the porch and running an extension cord out the back door.

I am not one of the latter types, I am one of the former. I run totally off the grid. No shore power for this kid.

The guy talking about Field Day offered me the use of a club laptop to log my calls and wasn't too happy with the look of scorn I gave him followed by my holding up a pen. He told me that it would make logging my QSOs a lot easier which I do not doubt for an instant.

Still, it isn't part of what I would call a Field Day because even though the laptop is battery powered, batteries need recharging and that means back to the grid. I suppose I could use a generator but the point is that Field Day should be just that, a day in the field.

The club has a trailer that they can haul around and set up which is not really a bad deal, depending on the nature of the emergency requiring a message center. They can get on the air with a generator and make themselves useful. I'm sure that they can provide communications to the powers that be.

Still, I am a grass roots sort of guy and I suppose it there was some kind of natural disaster I'd be pitching in at more of a neighborhood level.

Another thing covered was an up and coming downtown event that ham radio has contributed to historically.

It was brought up that we seem to get used less and less every year and  the ham community asked if they were still needed and they received a resounding YES.

Apparently they want amateur radio people as somewhat of a reserve parachute. This makes sense, really.

What as happened over the years is that communications in general have improved and really gotten a lot cheaper. 

Still, amateur radio has one solid thing going for it. It can run when everything else fails.







To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY