Thank you Johnny Rauzi
Utah
Portable (Field)
Day
When the unexpected occurs. When the inevitable happens
GRAB YOUR BAG AND GO.
TEST AND POLISH YOUR EMCOMM SKILLS.
BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE AND PROVE YOUR EQUIPMENT. GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!
SPONSORED by UTAH AREA ERC. This exercise is open to any and all Amateurs interested/involved in emergency communications regardless of agency or group affiliation. All are welcome! Please feel free to participate.
GOAL – Have Fun! Operate our Amateur radios. Get out of the house and into the field to practice our Emergency Communications Skills so we can provide back up communications “When All Else Fails”. Then back home to the Saturday chores.
WHEN - Saturday May 9, 2026 10:00 am to 12:00(noon) Hours (Only 2 hours duration)
WHERE – Somewhere in the great outdoors of your choosing. It could be in your backyard or down the street at a park, or maybe out in the corner of a big parking lot. With advanced permission it could be at the agency you serve, maybe out in their parking lot. If you want the most QSO’s then, “take the high(er) ground” in your area.
This will be a simplex operation, simulating point to point communication during a failure of standard communications methods e.g. telephone, internet and repeaters etc. Your location is up to you but be sure to document your location using the “What3words” application that you have downloaded on you phone from What3words.com. You will need those 3 words for the information exchange with other stations. If you experience difficulty with the 3 words app then just give the name of your nearest town or city or just make one up.
WHAT DO I NEED TO PARTICIPATE? An Amateur radio license, a 2 meter Amateur transceiver, HT, Mobile and your Go bag. Tune your radio to 146.52 simplex. We will also be operating on HF so check out the “CHOOSING A HF FREQUENCY BAND” information down below.
What do I do next? At 10:00am on the morning of May 9th turn your radio on (tip, set to full power out) and listen for any other station calling “CQ CQ CQ UTAH PORTABLE” or press PTT and make your own CQ call.
With any luck, you will make contact with another station. Now complete the contact by exchanging the following information with each other. Each others callsign followed by each others location using the “What3words” method. See the details EXCHANGE INFORMATION paragraph below.
Now, wash, rinse, repeat for another contact. Either you now call “CQ UTAH PORTABLE” or listen for someone else call “CQ” and you then “pounce” on them and make another exchange.
BTW, we failed to mention that 146.52 is the National Calling Frequency and good operating practice dictates that “after establishing contact with another station” we should change (QSY) to another
frequency to conduct the rest of our conversation. Other designated simplex frequencies include: 146.44, 146.46, 146.48. 146.50, 146.54, 146.56, 146.58 MHz. So move over (QSY)to another simplex frequency and confirm that you two are both on the new frequency and make your exchange of Callsigns and What3words. Return back to 146.52 and make another contact. Keep a log of all exchanges (QSO) and email us your log. We plan to make a map of Utah with a colored dots representing the locations of all participating stations.
Following the pattern shown above, feel free to choose “National Simplex Calling Frequency” for other bands and wash, rinse and repeat. 446.00 and 446.5 are the simplex frequencies for the 70cm band.
If HF is your thing go to the “CHOOSING A HF FREQUENCY BAND”
CHOOSING A HF FREQUENCY BAND
We are encouraging emergency communications to be employed within the Utah Area. This would be what is referred to as “regional” communications. We expect that we would employ 80, 60, 40, and 20 meters in Utah “regional communications”. PLEASE NOTE that 60 meters is a shared band with, Amateurs listed as the secondary users and we will not be using it for this exercise.
Our primary focus will be Near Incident Vertical Skywave (NVIS) propagation on 80 and 40 meters. We expect that 40 meters would be our best choice between the hours of 10:00 and 12:00 hours. We recommend giving it try on 80m and 20m as well for comparison reasons. BTW, 20m (14MHz) does not work for NVIS as the wavelength is too short to be refracted vertically at a steep angle back to earth. The entire 80/40/20 meter band will is available for use according to your license privileges. Try giving a CQ around 14.272 MHz, 7.272 MHz and 3902 MHz.
PLEASE NOTE: All antennas for NVIS must be horizontally polarized. Vertically polarized waves are not refracted as well as horizontally polarized waves. Horizontal dipoles, inverted “V”, End fed half waves all work well for NVIS.
FREQUENCY SUMMARY TABLE
3.902MHz
7.272 MHz
14.272 MHz
29.6 MHz
52.525, 52.540 MHz
146.520 MHz Calling then QSY 146.44, 146.46, 146.48. 146.50, 146.54, 146.56, 146.58 MHz
147.020+ MHz Tone 103.5 Hz(Lehi ARC repeater)
446.000 MHz, 446.5 MHz
EXCHANGE INFORMATION
The exchange information is the location of your stations current location on the face of the earth using the “What3words” nomenclature.
Prepare by going to the following url: What3words.com. You will need to download an app on your phone and no, it does not require an internet connection, once you have the app on your phone. All it needs is access to the cellphone GPS. The app will take your current lat/long coordinates from your phones GPS and give you the 3 words you need for the exchange.
If you experience difficulty with the 3 words app then just give the name of your nearest town or city or just make one up.
This is the part of the exercise where we learn a new skill for Emcomm.
OPERATING FROM HOME
Yes, if you can’t make it out to the field, then participate from your home station. We ask that your station operate from emergency power.
WHAT MODES (Anybody up for JS8 or Peer to Peer Winlink?)
Any mode that enables emergency communication traffic and supports the exchange requirement of What3words.
If you are interested in JS8 then add the word “@Utah” to your groups in JS8Call. Next click on the @Utah group in the right hand window and send a SNR? command to see what stations respond. For Winlink peer to peer arrange a QSO while on simplex and give it a try.
LOG YOUR CONTACTS AND SEND THEM TO US SO WE CAN PLOT THEM!
If you submit your contacts in the following format it will make it easier for us to plot them on a map of Utah.
FORMAT:
Your callsign,your 3 words location followed by pressing enter Contact callsign,contact 3 words location followed by pressing enter
If all of your contacts are from the same location then just enter you callsign/What3words line just once. Then a new new line for each station you work. If you move to a different location then enter your new callsign/What3words line again.
Format Example:
A9JR,paying.rings.spends (your callsign,What3words press the enter key) K7AT,blues.baking.speeds (contact callsign,What3words press the enter key) KD7YU,these.helium.refutes (contact callsign,What3words press the enter key) WA7FFM,monopolies.printer.version (contact callsign,What3words press the enter key) WB7RPF,Lehi (contact callsign,City press the enter key)
Please email your log to: Emcomm@xmission.com. Thank you!
More about what3words There is a Lilly ad at the beginning. Wait a few seconds for the TED Talk.
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