Amateur (Ham) Radio Field Day 2013

All these photos are from 6/22/2013 Field Day that the whole family participated in. The guy is my fiance Leif (W0RDE). The brunette girl is Leif's daughter, Mary (KD0CTJ). And the long haired redhead girl is my daughter, Alex (KD0CVK). The lighter photos is when we were at the Platte County station. The darker photos is from when we were at the Raytown club's station that day. I love the 'dignified' photo of Alex. She was being silly. : ) 
The first field day I ever participated in, the club RARC won that year (2007). (So our contributions/contacts helped them win!) Two photos of me and Leif were in the ARRL newsletter as part of their recognition for winning! See if you can pick out the photos of us two: http://www.arrl.org/soapbox/view/5162 (our names are in the article as well). What is field day? It's basically an annual amateur radio contest across the US and Canada where stations try to make the most contacts. Truth is, it's an annual exercise to make sure each group is ready in case of an emergency. For example, when a tornado hits an area, usually cellphone towers are down and amateur radio operators are called in to allow emergency communications to continue. They are critical to the emergency services and communities they help. One photo of me (in the linked page) was from the VERY first time I had ever operated a radio and is what got me interested. It eventually led me to become an amateur radio operator myself - KD0CTQ is my call sign. : )