The above photos are courtesy of the Peel Amateur Radio Club, the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club and the Ottawa Valley Amateur Radio Club. Please see the descriptions provided below.
Field Day is always the 4th full weekend in June.
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) / Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) Field Day is held annually during the fourth full weekend in June. This year’s event will be held on Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23, beginning at 1800 UTC Saturday and running through 2059 UTC Sunday.
Sponsored by the ARRL and RAC (but organized primarily by the ARRL), Field Day is open to all Amateur Radio operators covered by these two International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) member organizations.
Don’t forget to share your Field Day stories with us!
We would love to hear about your Field Day activities and would be happy to consider them for publication in The Canadian Amateur magazine. Please send them to us by using our online “Members Stories” form or by sending it directly to .
Don't forget to follow Field Day via Twitter using #ARRLFD and #RACFD and share your stories with RAC on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/radioamateurscdn.
For full Field Day rules and details, please visit the ARRL website. Have fun!
Peel Amateur Radio Club Field Day 2018
The above photos and the following text are courtesy of the Peel Amateur Radio Club and are being shown here with our thanks:
It turned out to be another very wet Field Day (FD) weekend but that didn’t seem to deter the participants from another successful effort. Including all the contacts and bonus points, we managed to come up with 6,348 points, just slightly above last year’s effort which was good enough to achieve Top Canadian in the 4A category.
Many visitors braved the conditions to come out and observe what we do. Among them were several members from the City of Brampton Emergency Management office as well as Linda Jeffery, the Mayor of Brampton (shown in the blue jacket).
Of particular note was the CW station. They managed to rack up 824 contacts, which looks to be an all time high.
To everyone in the club who participated, whether as an operator, logger or assisting with the setup and take down, we extend a big THANK YOU. None of this could have happened without you. We hope you had a great time and are looking forward to Field Day 2019.
Despite some adverse conditions on Field Day, we still managed to put in another good showing. Our score of 6,348 points earned us the top Canadian position in the 4A category once again. Overall, irrespective of the category, we placed second to VE1LD in the 2A category who had 6,448 points.
Many thanks go out to all who helped make FD a success.
For more information please visit:
https://ve3xr.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/2018-field-day-claimed-score/
https://ve3xr.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/2018-field-day-results/
The following information is courtesy of the Field Day Wikipedia site:
“Field Day is an annual Amateur Radio exercise, widely sponsored by International Amateur Radio Union (IARU regions) and member organizations, encouraging emergency communications preparedness among Amateur Radio operators.
Since the first ARRL Field Day in 1933, Radio Amateurs throughout North America have practised the rapid deployment of radio communications equipment in environments ranging from operations under tents in remote areas to operations inside Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs). Operations using emergency and alternative power sources are highly encouraged, since electricity and other public infrastructures are often among the first to fail during a natural disaster or severe weather.
To determine the effectiveness of the exercise and of each participant’s operations, there is an integrated contesting component, and many clubs also engage in concurrent leisure activities (camping out, cookouts, etc.). Operations typically last a continuous 24 hours, requiring scheduled relief operators to keep stations on the air. Additional contest points are awarded for experimenting with unusual modes, making contacts via satellite, and involving youth in the activity.”
Ottawa Amateur Radio Club and Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club Field Day
The above photos are courtesy of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club (OARC) and the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club (OVMRC).
In 2017, the two clubs organized a joint Field Day operation to celebrate Canada’s 150th Birthday as shown in two of the photos:
- RAC President Glenn MacDonell, VE3XRA, at a joint OARC-OVMRC Field Day in 2017 in Ottawa to celebrate Canada’s 150th Birthday.
- Greg Danylchenko, VA3GD/VE3YTZ operates the special CF3RAC station at the joint OARC-OVMRC Field Day in 2017 to celebrate Canada’s 150th Birthday.
The third photo shown in the great outdoors was taken as the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club sets up Field Day 2018.
Additional information
The following information is courtesy of the American Radio Relay League’s Field Day site:
“Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada. On the fourth weekend of June of each year, more than 35,000 Radio Amateurs gather with their clubs, groups or simply with friends to operate from remote locations.
Field Day is a picnic, a campout, practise for emergencies, an informal contest and, most of all, FUN! It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles.
While some will treat it as a contest, other groups use the opportunity to practise their emergency response capabilities. It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to the organizations that Amateur Radio might serve in an emergency, as well as the general public. For many clubs, ARRL Field Day is one of the highlights of their annual calendar.
The contest part is simply to contact as many other stations as possible and to learn to operate our radio gear in abnormal situations and less than optimal conditions. We use these same skills when we help with events such as marathons and bike-a-thons; fundraisers such as walk-a-thons; celebrations such as parades; and exhibits at fairs, malls and museums – these are all large, preplanned, non-emergency activities.
But despite the development of very complex, modern communications systems – or maybe because they ARE so complex – Amateur Radio has been called into action again and again to provide communications in crises when it really matters. Radio Amateurs are well known for our communications support in real disaster and post-disaster situations.
Contact your municipality for support, your news crews to drop by for important coverage to help raise the Amateur Radio profile within the community and invite your government leaders to drop by your site.”