If Noise from lighting and other souces was not a show stopper, after I
looked at the whole stadium business via the internet, they seem to still
be quite an interesting option to solve the growing difficulty in putting
up towers at your home.
Google Stadium, Stadium Design, Comcast-Spectrum, and other stadium related
terms, and you can see what a huge and specialized industry Stadiums are.
21 new ones have been built in the last 10 years in the US. Relatively few
players are the Design and Construction, and Management firms for Stadiums.
I wonder if a serious effort was made by the ARRL to approach these
management, and deisgn teams, to promote the goodness of a ham station
tucked away in some utilities room, or otherwise non public facility at a
stadium could bring a working relationship between the ham, and Stadium
communities?
Approach angles could be to provide a free capable Emergency Resource, (EOC
ham staiton) to the community, which may be a good adjunct to the stadium
itself being a gathering place for Emergency managemnt. Maybe even offer
to provide hams for occasional supplemental communications within the
stadium as needed, as a means of exchange of value for providing a ham
station - stadium presence.
I still look at that approach as being a mechanism to create great
contesting stations around the country, as more and more modern Stadiums are
built.
There must be a large amount of closed off areas to the public, that are
utility aeas for the stadium that could house the ham faciilities. Similar
to the often little used Foc'sle area on Navy ships being a location for the
radio clubs/hams of the ship's crew. I remember at least, the USS Missouri
having a ham/mars station tucked away in it's foc'sle.
Best, Pat Barthelow, AA6EG aa6eg@hotmail.com
>From: "Michael Tope" <W4EF@dellroy.com>
>To: "Steve W2ML" <adam77@earthlink.net>, <towertalk@contesting.com>
>Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Stadiums as Tower/Contest Locations
>Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 06:20:35 -0700
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steve W2ML" <adam77@earthlink.net>
>To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 5:49 PM
>Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Stadiums as Tower/Contest Locations
>
>
> >> Roger K8RI)
> >>
> >> I wonder, if properly approached, stadium management would allow
> > hams/contesters
> >> to set up semi permanent, or perhaps permanent towers/antennas or to
>use
> > existing
> >> tall structures at the stadiums for antennas and contest operations?
> >
> > If you are talking about stadia that host the NFL or other professional
> > sports,
> > keep in mind that 70,000 - 90,000 people are there for sporting events
>on
> > the
> > same weekends that contests are held.
> >
> > I passed this concept past the people who run Giants stadium at the
> > Meadowlands in
> > New Jersey and host 5 professional sports teams during the year. They
> > thought
> > I was joking.
> >
> > College stadia may be a possibility, but they, too, make a great deal of
> > money on
> > football during the fall contest season.
> >
> > While the towers and lighting grids look wonderful for ham antennas, if
>it
> > doesn't
> > make money for the venue, the chance of getting in to use the place for
> > contesting
> > rests solely on the coincidence of a ham being in a management or key
> > position at
> > the venue.
> >
> > Many places I visited, when I was traveling with Monday Night Football,
> > would have
> > made wonderful anchors for long wires/dipoles, but all the hams on the
> > crew
> > could
> > do was dream about it.
> >
> > Of course, TowerTalk rule #1 applies here.... YMMV.
> >
> > -73- Steve Mendelsohn, W2ML
> > President, North Jersey DX Association
> > Game Day Frequency Coordinator, New York Jets
>It's since been relocated to another part of campus, but when I was
>attending the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio back in the 80's,
>the radio club (W8LT) was located in the football stadium. We had a
>2 element quad mounted on a short Rohn 25 tower on the top of the
>southeast bell tower of the stadium (110 feet high) and a 100 foot high
>x 600 foot long wire stretched from the southeast bell tower over to the
>smokestack of the McCracken power plant due east of the stadium. If
>you click on the link below you and then hit the "zoom" button you can
>just make out the short antenna tower sandwiched between the two
>flagpoles on the southeast bell tower (lower right side in photo):
>
>http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Ohio-State-Buckeyes-Ohio-Stadium-Posters_i1256316_.htm
>
>I can't tell from that photo which antenna is on the tower, but I suspect
>it was the 2 element quad which can be seen in the following photo:
>
>http://www.w8lt.org/images/history-p02.jpg
>
>It was a noisy location, but that long wire was a real pileup buster to
>West Africa on 75 meters.
>
>I can recall one occasion where Pat N8VW suspended an 80 meter
>half square between the open ends of the stadium horseshoe
>and then proceeded to work what seemed like an amazingly long
>string of northern Europeans on 75 and 80 meters.
>
>On a number of occasions, several of us hid out in the club room on a
>Friday night before a football came so that we could operate
>Sweepstakes (we normally had 24/7 access to the station, but not on
>game day. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing except there
>were no unlocked bathrooms inside the stadium which made going
>#2 an interesting challenge :-):-)
>
>73, Mike W4EF (ex KD8NS)
>
>
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