Hello fellow amateurs and Mason County Amateur Radio Club member. For those who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. I’m Don Myers, W7WST. Last April, I returned to ham radio after a 25 year hiatus. One of the things from my former ham life that I remember enjoying most was Field Day. Because of that, I eagerly looked forward to FD 2011 and actively participated with the MCARC effort. It was a lot of fun, but disappointing in many respects. I expressed my views at subsequent club meetings, and as a result, was appointed chairman for our club’s 2012 Field Day effort.

My goal as Field Day chairman is to make MCARC’s 2012 effort a “bigger deal.” I would like to make our Field Day effort not just a contest, not just a public demonstration of amateur radio, not just an emergency preparedness exercise, and not just a social gathering. I would like to see Field Day 2012 be all of these and more. I have hopes of Field Day being the high point of our club’s annual activities. If the membership agrees with me, and I hope they will, its time to get started.

Some of the things that I would like to accomplish are: more participation — we only had about five operators last year; more public visibility; better use of the available bonus points; perhaps coordination with the North County club — I suggested a friendly competition, but Stan King, KF7LTT, pointed out that their participation level was such that a cooperative joint effort might be better; whatever anyone else can think of.

Ray Albee, KC7PHU, has already volunteered to serve on the committee. I will be soliciting additional membership at club meetings. I know we aren’t as big as Mike & Key or Radio Club of Tacoma, but we are every bit as much a ham club and our Field Day effort can be as big as theirs, it can be just a much a big deal and just as much fun!

Some random thoughts:

How many transmitters?

GOTA station?

Pot luck or picnic?

Overnighters?

Antennas?

Backup rigs?

Backup power sources?

Solar multiplier?

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. Pass it along to anyone who isn’t on the list of addressees but should have been. Talk about it on the weekly nets — regretfully, I don’t have VHF capability, but will try to get on the 10 meter net.

73

Don, W7WST