What a busy couple of days. Last Saturday/Sunday was amater radio’s annual Field Day event. This is a 24 hour event that involves lugging thousands of dollars worth of radio equipment out into the middle of nowhere, and proceed to chant the same incantation (“CQ Field Day, CQ Field Day”) into the microphone for 24 hours, only to gather up all of the equipment and take it home again. The weekend consists of junk food and mosquitoes.

Actually, it’s lots of fun. It’s basically an emergency preparedness exercise, with a big social element thrown in. This year, we were located in Mission Creek Park in Kelowna, BC. This gave us great public exposure, with lots of people asking us questions.

This year was a double-whammy, because right after Field Day was the annual Canada Day contest. This time, we were holed up in our club shack, but the incantation was similar (“CQ Canada Day, CQ Canada Day”). I must admit that this year I sneaked away from the Canada Day contest to grab some decent shut-eye in my own bed.

Now it’s time for me to get back to work…