Getting Ready For Field Day

It's time to finalize those field day plans!

Like many of you, our field day operations are part contest and part promotion. We use the event to hone contesting skills, use alternative power, try new gear/techniques and promote the hobby we love.

Kevin K5KVN, an Alderman on the city council of Elm Springs, Arkansas, secured an "Amateur Radio Day" proclamation for the city. Read it here [PDF]. Ask your mayor to do a proclamation. It's easy!

Here is a rundown of our plans:

• Operating WR5P (for the very first time!) as category 2E from the shack of K5PO.
• Once again, the wildly popular live webcam in the shack! We will feed rig audio to the webcam, too.
• Photos uploaded throughout the event in our photo gallery.
• Videos uploaded to our YouTube channel.
• Real-time info on our various Twitter handles.
• As for anything else: we'll wing it.

What are you doing for field day? Tell us in the comments below.

Ham Hijinks Covered Dayton

The Ham Hijinks news team was very busy during the Dayton Hamvention making up news stories about the biggest ham radio event of the year. Those of you that stopped by to read and comment on the stories, we thank you. To those of you that thought the restroom story was real and called/emailed Dayton officials about it, we're still shaking our heads.

In case you missed it, you can read all of our Dayton coverage here.

What People Searched For, Installment #1

It's time for the first installment of "What People Searched For To Get To Noiseblankers.com"

The data is real, and we believe it to be the true pulse of amateur radio today. And now, we give you a random list of actual search terms used to get to noiseblankers.com in the past week, with some speculation thrown in for good measure:

• lady ham-radios yl on the air videos (We have some single guys in the club, so this may be our own fault. Likely, though, the searchers were looking for this article.)
• what happened to 14.313 (We can go on and on about what happened to that frequency. But, we think folks probably found this story or this one.)
• special mother in law (Don't we all have special mother-in-laws? This guy has one special enough to do a special event.)
• ham operator hit (Is this related to the Ham Radio Mafia mentioned here?)
• hamradio catcall (See bullet point #1)

Happy searching! We hope you enjoy the site.  - 73 de K5KVN -

Noise Blankers Win Something; First Thought To Be Prank Call

(Not the actual trophy awarded to The Noise Blankers)NORTHWEST Ark.; April 9, 2013 -- Today the ARRL announced The Noise Blankers Radio Group won 2nd place in the 2013 QST Video Contest. Kevin K5KVN submitted our video from the K5H Horseshoe Island Activation and the club was quite surprised that the League thought it was good.

"This is a highly unusual thing for us, as we've only received 'participation' ribbons for most everything we've ever done in life," said Noise Blankers President Gary WBØRUR. "I'm embarrased to say that Kevin hung up on the ARRL the first time they called, assuming that anyone wanting to give us an award must be a prank caller."

Read the announcement from the ARRL: http://www.arrl.org/news/qst-announces-video-contest-winners

And here is the award-winning video:

UPDATE: We made it into the June 2013 QST! Here's what it looks like on page 46. That's K5PO in the green shirt.

• Watch more of our videos here.
• Read about our K5H special event here.