06/27/2006 | K4TLH We were able to get permission from the Division of Parks and Rec to hold our Field Day in Tom Brown Park, the biggest park in Tallahassee and a first for us. We organized our Field Day chain of command using ICS principles and invited several other agencies to participate with their own recruiting and disaster relief demonstrations. By the time it was over, we had representatives from the Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society, Tallahassee Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, American Red Cross, Leon Co EMS, and a private medevac chopper that came and hung out with us for a while until they had to respond to a call. Piles and piles of chicken were grilled and consumed along with several coolers full of icy cold soda. Sunday brought a news crew (shame she missed the inter-agency festivities the day before), with the reporter actually taking a turn at the GOTA station. They also aired shots of the CW station in action along with the HF voice station in our response van and interviewed a brand-new ham who had just earned his license the day before at the Field Day testing session and did not even have a callsign yet; he was probably the best advertisement for ham radio as he enthuiastically rattled off several reasons he got involved and stated how he couldn't wait to get on the air with his own callsign. They also shot footage of our youth group (Big Bend Hamsters) and discussed how to get more coverage of our more mundane exercises and public service events.

A huge thanks goes out to the many hams and disaster response organizations that helped make 2006 Field Day what several club members have called the best one yet. -- AI4KK