ARRL Field Day Setup

From the ARRL web site:

Objective - "To work as many stations as possible on any and all amateur bands (excluding the 60, 30, 17, and 12-meter bands)"

It does NOT say to work as many K/VE stations as possible. K/VE stations can work anyone for credit. DX stations cannot send in logs, but they can be worked by K/VE stations for credit.

It also says not to use 60, 30, 17 or 12 meters.

CC User Setup

Connect CC User (aka AR User) to any cluster you want. Setup the Bands and then Setup the filtering.

Connect N1MM or any other logging program to CC User. You will get duplicate spots. The logging program will filter these out when displaying them on its band map. Logging Program

Bands

Go to "Configuration>Bands". Select the bands you DON'T want to see. Click "Apply". Then go to the "Bands" tab and select the frequency ranges for these bands. You probably want them all. Select what you want and click on "Tell Cluster". The cluster will then send only spots for the band segments you have selected.

Filtering

You probably only want to see stations spotted that you can work. This requires you to setup the "Spotter Country" and "Spotter State" filtering. Then "Tell Cluster". You may have to change this several times during the contest. During daylight hours you probably can work all over on the high bands. During the night when the high bands may be dead, you will be on the lower bands, where your range is probably much more restricted. As noted earlier, you can work anyone, so you may not want to setup the "DX Country" or "DX State" filters. Setting DX State filters also has another downside. You may think that setting all of them to pass will give you all the USA/VE spots. This is NOT true. A call like N6TR/7 will not be passed on. This is because the state is unknown. Since it cannot be matched to any state you have set, it will be rejected. Don't set the "DX State" filters for FD.

Cluster

You can use the RBN network, or any regular DX Cluster. If you are in the NE, then you have several local skimmers that will supply you with lots of spots. If you are in the NW, you have NO local skimmers. There are none. You will want to see spots from the regular cluster system as well. Skimmers only spot CW stations. If you want to see anything else, then you will want spots from the regular DX Cluster system. The VE7CC-1 cluster is currently Beta testing a version that allows both selected Skimmer and regular DX spots to be seen at the same time. To see skimmer spots when using VE7CC-1, go to "Settings" and select "Skimmer". Then "Tell Cluster". Skimmer spots will be filtered the same as any other spots, by country and state etc.