Field Day 2020
Thanks to all who participated in our Annual Field Day Event! See our 2020 ARRL Field Day Photo Album
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.
To maintain safe health practices during the current COVID-19 pandemic, our club members operated from their own stations to compete for Club Awards and contribute to the total club score.
2020 Field Day - 1795 Total Contacts
2019 Field Day - 338 Total Contacts
Field Day operation starts at 11:00 am PDT on Sat., June 27.
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 27th 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 2020 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.
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.
OBJECTIVE: To contact as many stations as possible on the 160, 80, 40, 20,15 and 10 Meter HF bands, as well as all bands 50 MHz and above, and to learn to operate in abnormal situations in less than optimal conditions. 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.
Here is an example of a typical Field Day phone exchange
(Use your own callsign instead of N6NA):
Here is a typical Field Day CW or digital exchange
(Use your own call sign instead of N6NA:
N6NA: “CQ Field Day, November Six November Alpha, Field Day”
W1AW: “Whiskey One Alpha Whiskey”
N6NA: “W1AW, Copy my One Delta, Sierra Victor”
W1AW: “QSL. Copy my Five Alpha, Connecticut”
N6NA: “QSL, Thanks. This is N6NA. Field Day.”
N6NA: “CQ FD DE N6NA N6NA”
W1AW: “W1AW”
N6NA: “W1AW DE N6NA 1D 1D SV SV”
W1AW: “QSL 5A 5A CT CT"
N6NA: “QSL TU N6NA FD”
Use your own call sign. 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.
If you plan to operate Two Meter FM simplex, the San Francisco RC recommends the following frequencies for Field Day contacts:
River City Amateur Communications Society: 145.250 (simplex only, no tone squelch)
National Calling Frequency: 146.520 (ARRL says it is OK)
San Francisco Radio Club (SFRC): 146.415, 146.460, 146.505, 146.550
San Mateo Radio Club (SMRC): 145.650
Bay-Net: 146.460
Some clubs are using: 146.430, 146.490
LOGGING: 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 6.3 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.
ZOOM POTLUCK DINNER: We will break at 6 pm Saturday for a potluck Zoom Dinner and Social Hour. Your choice of meal and drinks is up to you! The Zoom meeting ID is 892 1170 5719. Check your e-mail inbox or message us on Discord or via contact@n6na.org for the Zoom meeting password.
TAKE DOWN: Field Day concludes at 11:00 am PDT on Sunday morning, June 28.
Field Day on Social Media!
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. Especially for this year's "Covid Virtual Edition" Field Day 2020: 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!
Club Awards RCARCS Field Day participants competed for Club Awards (ARRL Field Day Hats, Pins, T-Shirts and DX Engineering Gift Certificates) in the categories below. Winners were announced at our July 7 meeting.Most Contacts Phone
Most Contacts CW, or Digital
Rookie Field Day Operator
Best Photo for Field Day
Top 3 Scores overall
Special Recognition Prize
Winners were announced at our July 7 meeting.
Any questions? Please direct any questions you may have via email to contact@n6na.org.
Past ARRL Field Day Archives - 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013
Field Day Entry/Results Submission:Upon completion of Field Day, participants submitted 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, 2020). ARRL will sent an email confirmation and listed participating call signs on http://field-day.arrl.org/fdentriesrcvd.php
2019 Field Day Antenna Farm
Scenes from 2013 Field Day
Fox 40 Good Day Sacramento
Field Day Bandpass Filter Project
Chuck Freas W6FT (SK) prepared kits of parts complete with capacitors, coil forms, connectors, wire, enclosure and hardware for our N1NC "Ugly Filter" building project.
Dave Martin WB6YLK, Ken Martin KE6RMN, Chris Huber N6ICW, and Carol Milazzo KP4MD built the filters.
Many thanks to John Geyer WB6UBK and Geyer Electric for donating the wire
and to Surplus Stuff 8505 Folsom Blvd for donating the enclosures!
ARRL Amateur Radio Field Day in Sacramento California