Steve Bonine wrote:


By the way, my answer to the question of whether FD is a contest, an
emergency-preparedness training activity, or a party is "yes". It's a
unique event with all of those attributes. Each is important. The
contest aspect provides an objective evaluation of the success of the
setup that is used, and the social aspect of the event builds important
relationships and motivates people to participate. There's no reason
that FD has to be one thing; it can fulfill several objectives at the
same time.

I guess I'll disagree, mildly, because I'm concerned that some readers
might take the inference that the contest aspect of field day is an
_objective_ evaluation of emergency-preparedness. To be sure, it's an
evaluation of the hardware and antennas and operator skill, but being
prepared to contribute in a disaster takes more than having a radio and
antenna.

Field day is, and should be, a reminder that hams who are preparing to
help in disasters must plan every detail _before_ they need to be
effective, and must put that planning into practice several times
_before_ it's needed. It's important to be a competent operator, but I
don't feel that contest scores, per se, show who'll be the most
organized beforehand, or who will be best-able to multi-task, tolerate a
lot of ambiguity, juggle priorities, and suffer abuse from public
officials and the served agencies, without losing their cool or making
too many mistakes.

Contesting is about scoring. Disaster preparedness is about putting your
ego on a shelf and being willing to deal with boredom, long waits, and
assignments that are far from the TV cameras, very far from the flush
toilets, and nowhere even close to the hot food or the TV lights or the
glory.

73,

W1AC

--
Bill Horne

(Remove QRM from my address for direct replies.)