RF Farmers and Events

What is the Radio Farm ?

The Radio Farm is best described as a virtual association*, which is pretty remarkable in itself, since we have virtually no organization whatsoever. We are an informal group of amateur radio operators that "enjoy" radio contests. Typical contest enjoyment activities include: assembling antennas in ice storms in the middle of the night, tearing apart amplifiers repeatedly during contests, re-soldering the braid to the ground rod at the beverage feed during an Iowa January, etc.

You may be getting the impression that not everything goes well at the radio farm. This is, in fact, the case. Fortunately, a great deal of the activity seems some what humorous... eventually. This web site is intended to provide us (and maybe some of you) with some levity. Aside from the humor (or meager attempts at such), this site also contains information on various projects, events and what-not that some of the individuals are involved with when they aren't wearing their farmer hats.

• Participation in amateur radio organizations at local, regional and national levels
• Article-writing for periodicals and handbooks
• Involvement in local government as it effects amateur radio
• Developing, deploying, and maintaining significant portions of the local packet radio network
• Participation in design projects for other organizations e.g. AMSAT
• Supporting educational activities through radio and general high-tech demonstrations e.g. JOTA
• Experimentation and integration of GPS technologies with amateur radio

* Previously Radio Farm was referred to as a virtual organization. For quite some time the term "organization" has been inappropriate. The term "association" has been inserted to comply with the rf.org Truth On The Web Policy.

From here:

• What is Amateur Radio ? This is a brief description of amateur radio, with tips and links on how to find more information, find an exam, etc.
• What's the current crop look like ? This is a look at current and past (especially when this page doesn't get updated) projects on and off the farm. Follow this link to find info on the Linn county tower ordinance, JOTA, AMSAT GPS experiments, and packet radio projects.
• Radio Farm Operations A look at the more than moderately askew activities on the farm. This link shows you some of the people and activities on the farm, including VHF and HF contesting.
• "Farm Equipment" An area where we show off some of the equipment found on the radio farm. Some of this stuff you might not expect either on a farm or at a ham station. This area gets image intensive.
• "The Club Document" is a summary of what we're about and who the current officers are. Oh... so many officers. Maybe we should have ho-shin goals and a mission statement as well. :-)
• The usual suspects is a list of radio farm participants with home pages. The list acts as an index to their home pages.
• Other links of interest This is a page of links to web sites with related subjects. This links include ARRL, AMSAT, CSVHF, CVARC, and AMRAD.

A report of activity on this web site is available.