Calvin & Phineas Hamming It Up^®™
Saving Field Day

Amateur Extra-class teenagers Calvin Nolten and Phineas Thorin embark on a mission to track down the source of spurious signals in the 70 cm Ham band which threaten DX contesting on Field Day.

By Kirt Blattenberger,
     KB3UON, AE

Calvin Nolten, a pint-sized shockwave of teenage pandemonium, slammed open the front door of his home with a report that could've been mistaken for a misfiring capacitor, the frame shuddering as if protesting the assault. At fifteen, barely scraping five-and-a-half feet, Calvin was a bundle of raw energy. His school backpack was a chaotic jumble of ham radio manuals, a late-model Galaxy smartphone, and lunchtime leftovers. He stormed the kitchen, raided the fridge for a quick snack, and before the light inside had a chance to go out, Calvin was out the back door, bound for Phineas Thorin's basement "shack." Mrs. Nolten, unperturbed by the familiar maelstrom, took solace in know that the chaos meant her boy was home safe - and likely already plotting some radio mischief with his partner in crime next door.

Down the concrete steps to Phineas's QTH¹ he bounded, erupting into the tech-laden sanctuary like a 1,000-watt signal blasting through a quiet band. The basement buzzed with a hum of innovation: LED lamps cast a sterile glow over a workbench littered with resistors and wire scraps, a soldering iron exhaled faint wisps of smoke, and their pride and joy - a homebrew portable transceiver of etched PCBs and hand-wound coils - sat wired to an Arduino microprocessor board and a programmable synthesizer.

QSL² cards, trophies of distant contacts, peppered the walls like a gallery of conquests. Phineas, a towering 5'11" at sixteen, built more for power than agility, hunched over his base station, call sign PH1NES etched on a wall plaque with the gravitas of a battlefield marker. His Amateur Extra license hung beside Calvin's CA1VIN, twin testaments to late-night cramming and dogged grit. Phineas had recently received a new transceiver with a built-in spectrum analyzer as a birthday present.

"Yo, Phin, you crankin' on the 70 cm band today or what?" Calvin tossed out, kicking off his sneakers with the casual disregard of a kid who lived half his life in this cluttered cave. "Local net's blowin' up with drama. Some ghost signal's got the hams salty, and Field Day's a hot minute away." Phineas didn't bother to look up from the variable capacitor he was tweaking with a jeweler's screwdriver, his large hands moving with a delicacy that belied his frame.

"Heard it, bruh. Random QRM³ between 420 and 450 megahertz. Bursts shorter than a Snapchat story, then nada. Sometimes there's jumbled speech, sounds like someone's keying a mic while blathering nonsense. Forums are straight fire with complaints, but nobody's pinned it." Calvin sidled up to the spectrum analyzer, squinting at the spiky waveform as if it might confess under interrogation. "This ain't just noise; it's got intent. With Field Day in a just couple weeks, we can't let some random spike the 70 cm mess up the works. DXers⁴ are gonna flip if they can't log contacts for the contest. That band's prime real estate for points."

Phineas let out a grunt, a sound that carried the weight of agreement and annoyance in equal measure. "Facts. I ran some basic RDF⁵ with my handheld last weekend. Got zip. Signal's too quick to lock. Other operators in the area struck out too. Been a low-key nuisance 'til now, but Field Day's our Super Bowl, Cal. We gotta squash this QRM before the big game."

Calvin cracked his knuckles, a grin splitting his face like a cracked whip. "I'm gonna slap together a script for the specan. Narrow it to the hot zone in the 70 cm band, log every blip - time, duration, power level. Feed that data into Grok AI, see if there's a pattern. We ain't just hams, Phin; we're signal sleuths on the grind." Phineas finally glanced over, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he set down the screwdriver. "Savage. Let's rig this up stat. Field Day waits for no one, not even us."

There was something almost noble in the way these two tackled a problem, a pair of teenage knights-errant wielding transceivers instead of swords. The 70 cm band, spanning 420 to 450 MHz, was a playground for ultra-high-frequency enthusiasts on a DX mission. That slice of spectrum is where hams chase long-distance contacts with the precision of snipers. But this phantom interference standoff threatened to turn their hallowed ground into a battlefield of static.

Field Day, the annual amateur radio event where operators worldwide racked up points through contacts, loomed just three weeks hence. A clear band was non-negotiable, and if Calvin and Phineas had to play detective to ensure it, so be it. The shack, with its flickering screens and coiled wires, became their war room, and the game was afoot.

In the days that followed, Phineas's basement transformed into a hive of obsessive activity, a command center where the hum of electronics rivaled the intensity of the boys' determination. Calvin, the wiry brainiac of the duo, hunched over his laptop with the ferocity of a hacker cracking a Pentagon firewall, coding a script to harness the spectrum analyzer's programmability. The transceiver, a marvel of modern tech with its dual-mode display, was tasked with monitoring a narrow slice of the 70 cm band - specifically 430 to 440 MHz, where most of the interference had been reported. His program logged every anomaly: timestamp, duration, and signal strength in decibels relative to a milliwatt (i.e., dBm). It was grunt work, the kind of tedious data collection that would've bored lesser minds, but Calvin thrived on it, fueled by cans of root beer and the occasional muttered "straight fire" when a particularly juicy burst popped up on the screen.

Phineas, meanwhile, played the role of hardware wizard, ensuring their rig was up to the task. He double-checked the specan's calibration, muttering about frequency drift and the importance of a stable local oscillator. "Gotta keep this baby locked, Cal," he'd say, tweaking a knob with the precision of a surgeon. "If the reference signal's off by even 10 kHz, our data's trash." Together, they rigged a rudimentary alert system - an old buzzer wired to the Arduino - that squawked whenever a signal exceeding -90 dBm hit the band. It was crude, but effective, a low-tech sentinel in a high-tech war.

For nearly two weeks, they collected data, the analyzer humming through afternoons and weekends while the boys juggled school, homework, and the occasional parental lecture about screen time. The local ham radio net, a nightly gathering of operators on a nearby repeater, buzzed with grumbling about the interference. "Sounds like a kid gargling gravel through a mic," one grizzled ham griped over the airwaves, his voice crackling through Phineas's base station speaker. "Heard it yesterday afternoon, right when I was chasing a DX from Ontario. Ruined my shot."

Another op chimed in, lamenting a burst over the weekend that drowned out a contest contact. The consensus was clear: this QRM - radio slang for interference - was a nuisance, tolerable only until Field Day turned it into a crisis.

Calvin's data logs grew into a sprawling spreadsheet, a digital haystack of timestamps and signal spikes. After two weeks, with hundreds of entries amassed, he uploaded the data to Grok AI, a tool he'd be told in a tech forum excelled at pattern recognition. "Find me the hot zones," he muttered to the screen, inputting parameters to isolate times of day with peak activity.

The results, spat out after a few seconds of processing, were a revelation. The interference clustered heavily between 3:00 and 5:00 PM on weekdays, with another consistent spike early Saturday mornings, often from 7:00 to 9:00 AM. Random bursts dotted the timeline elsewhere, but never before 3:00 PM on school days. It was as if the phantom signal respected the sanctity of K-12 class hours - a curious quirk that set Calvin's mind racing.

"Phin, check this out," Calvin called, spinning his laptop to face his partner, who was elbow-deep in a tangle of coaxial cable. "It's clockwork, bruh. After school and Saturday mornin'. Ain't no way this is industrial noise or some factory glitch. This smells like a human, prob'ly a kid with too much time and not enough sense."

Phineas wiped sweat from his brow, nodding slowly as he absorbed the data. "Facts. School lets out at 2:45, right? Gives 'em time to get home, mess around. Saturday mornin' could be before parents are up or while they're out. We're huntin' a rogue op, Cal, someone who doesn't know or doesn't care about FCC⁶ rules."

The theory fit like a perfectly tuned resonator. Amateur radio required a license, a call sign, and a strict code of conduct - none of which this ghost seemed to possess. The garbled speech, when it appeared, was incoherent, lacking the structure of a proper transmission. It wasn't malicious, perhaps, but it was illegal, and with Field Day approaching, it was a ticking bomb on the 70 cm band.

The boys knew the stakes: hams across the region would swarm the frequencies, racking up points through contacts near and far, especially in the UHF bands where line-of-sight propagation offered tantalizing reach. A clear spectrum was gold, and this spectral signal standoff threatened to tarnish it.

Their next move was clear, though not without challenge. Tracking a signal's source using radio direction finding required more than logs and hunches. It demanded hardware, software, and a healthy dose of teenage bravado.

Calvin and Phineas, undeterred by the complexity, began plotting a triangulation scheme that would've made a seasoned engineer raise an eyebrow. They had the brains, the gear, and just enough reckless energy to pull it off. If the local ham community couldn't crack this case, these two would, or they'd blow a fuse trying.

The basement shack, already a shrine to their obsession, became a laboratory of war. Sketches of antenna arrays littered the workbench, alongside hastily scribbled equations for signal strength and propagation loss. Calvin muttered about angle of arrival (AoA) algorithms while Phineas tested connectors with a second- or third-hand SWR meter he picked up at a swap meet, ensuring every picowatt of received power would count. They were no longer just kids with a hobby; they were hunters on the trail of a digital wraith, and the clock was ticking toward Field Day with merciless precision.

The 70 cm band, that narrow slice of ultra-high-frequency heaven, depended on their success, whether the wider ham world knew it or not.

If Phineas's basement was a war room, then the next phase of their campaign turned it into a full-blown mission control, complete with the kind of jury-rigged brilliance that only teenagers with too much caffeinated soda pop and too little supervision could muster.

Calvin, the self-appointed software guru, perched on a stool with his laptop balanced on a stack of dog-eared QST magazines, hammering out lines of Python code to transform their spectrum analyzer into a signal-tracking beast. His goal was surgical: monitor inputs from three Yagi antennas pointing 120 degrees apart, cycle through them in real-time, and log power levels for each burst of interference in the 70 cm band. "Gotta sync this array tightly," he muttered, eyes glued to the screen. "Half-second swaps between feeds, or we're toast on the data since signal dwell times are short."

Phineas, the hardware half of this dynamic duo, played his part with the steady focus of a blacksmith forging a blade. He'd secured three Yagi antennas - two of their own, painstakingly tuned for 430 MHz with a forward gain of about 10 dBi, and a third borrowed from a buddy at the local ham club after a promise of future QSL card trades. These directional antennas, with their arrays of precisely spaced elements, were positioned in a triangular pattern: one on Phineas's roof, one in Calvin's backyard, and the third on a neighbor's lot after a quick negotiation involving lawn-mowing duties. Each was linked by RG-6 coaxial cable - low-loss at UHF frequencies - to a remote-controlled RF switch Phineas had salvaged from a flea market haul and refurbished with a soldering iron and sheer stubbornness.

"Switch latency's under 100 milliseconds, Cal," Phineas reported, testing the setup with a multimeter to ensure clean connections. "I'm keepin' cable runs short to dodge signal loss. At 450 megahertz, every decibel counts. These Yagis are dialed - boom length's spot-on for max gain. We're snagging every millisquidgen of that ghost signal." The setup was a teenage triumph of form and function. The RF switch, slaved to Calvin's script via the Arduino, would alternate between the three antenna feeds, allowing the spectrum analyzer to record signal strength and timestamp for each. By comparing power levels across the triad, they could estimate the direction of the incoming signal through an AoA⁷ calculation. It wasn't perfect; multipath effects and urban clutter could skew the readings, but it was a start.

Calvin fed the logic into Grok AI, tasking it with crunching the numbers using a basic triangulation algorithm based on relative signal strength. "If we get a solid bearing, we're golden," he said, cracking open another root beer. "Even a 20-degree window gives us a search zone." For days, they fine-tuned the rig, running tests with known local repeaters to validate their system. Tuesday afternoon, slotted between 3:00 and 5:00 PM when the interference typically spiked, became their proving ground. The spectrum analyzer hummed, its screen flickering like a disco ball as data streamed in. The buzzer squawked intermittently, signaling bursts above the -90 dBm threshold. Calvin whooped at each hit, scribbling notes while Phineas monitored the switch for glitches. "We're cookin', dude!" Calvin exclaimed as a particularly strong burst pegged the meter at -75 dBm on one antenna.

Two hours later, with a couple dozen dozen captures logged, they uploaded the data to Grok for analysis. The AI's output was a digital breadcrumb: an AoA range of 115 to 140 degrees - southeast from their QTH. It wasn't a pinpoint - urban reflections off houses and power lines likely widened the spread - but it was a corridor, a slice of suburbia to scour.

Phineas pulled up a road map on his phone, overlaying the bearing with a 10-mile radius. "Got four decent antenna setups in that zone," he noted, pointing to dots on the screen. "Could be hams, could be CB nuts with illegal amps. Either way, we're huntin'." Calvin grinned, already itching to move. "Done. We roll tomorrow right after school."

The boys grabbed a handheld radio sporting a rubber duck antenna for close-range sniffs. "We're on the source like white on rice. Let's bag this ghost before Field Day turns into a dumpster fire."

The plan was audacious, even for two kids who'd built their first transceiver from scratch. Radio direction finding on bicycles with a handheld was more art than science. The rubber duck antenna, a stubby little thing with omnidirectional reception, wouldn't match a Yagi's precision, but at short range, signal strength readings would guide them. They'd pedal along the bearing, watching the S-meter on Calvin's radio for spikes, narrowing the search block by block. It was low-tech after their high-tech triangulation, but sometimes boots on the ground - or wheels on asphalt - beat all the algorithms in the world.

Their strategy wasn't without risks. Urban environments played havoc with UHF signals, bouncing them off metal roofs and brick walls until a bearing became a suggestion rather than a certainty. In the days of over-the-air- (OTA) TV broadcasts, UHF-channel pictures famously wavered in quality in urban areas due to multipath and fading due to moving vehicles and reflective structures.

And then there was the human factor: confronting the source, if they found it, could mean anything from a clueless newbie to a grizzled ham with a chip on his shoulder. Calvin and Phineas, for all their bravado, were still kids, armed with little more than technical know-how and a sense of justice. But Field Day loomed, a mere five days away, and the 70 cm band's integrity hung in the balance. The spectral signal, this phantom of the ether, had to be silenced, and these two were the only ones with a lead.

As they packed their gear that night - handheld radio, spare batteries, a notebook for signal logs, and a map marked with target zones - there was a palpable buzz in the shack. Lights glinted off the QSL cards on the wall, each a reminder of past victories over distance and static. Calvin tested the handheld's squelch, ensuring it wouldn't chatter with background noise, while Phineas double-checked their route, muttering about line-of-sight paths. They were ready, or as ready as two teenagers could be for a mission that blended Sherlock Holmes with Radio Shack. The hunt was on, and the suburbs southeast of their QTH were about to get a double dose of ham radio hustle.

The following afternoon, as the school bell rang at 2:45 PM, Calvin and Phineas were already halfway out the door, backpacks slung over shoulders and bicycles unchained with the urgency of fighter pilotss scrambling to the flightline. The suburban air was thick with the promise of answers, or at least a good chase, as they pedaled southeast along the 115-to-140-degree bearing their triangulation had spat out.

Calvin clutched his radio, its rubber duck antenna jutting like a stubby finger into the breeze, tuned to 435 MHz in the heart of the 70 cm band. Phineas, riding point, kept one eye on his phone's map app and the other on the road, shouting out turns while dodging potholes. "Keep that S-meter lit, Cal!" he yelled over his shoulder. "We're huntin' live QRM!" The S-meter, a crude bar graph on the radio's tiny screen, danced lazily at first, hovering at S1 or S2 as background noise tickled the receiver. They'd set the squelch tight to filter out static, ensuring only legit signals broke through. Their plan was simple but precise: follow the bearing, check the four antenna sites within a 10-mile radius, and watch for spikes on the meter.

At short range, a strong signal - say, S7 or above - would mean they were closing in, even if multipath effects in the suburban jungle of houses and power lines played tricks on direction. Barely a mile from home, as they coasted past a strip of ranch-style homes, the radio crackled to life. A burst of static, sharp and sudden, pegged the S-meter at S5 for three seconds before fading. Calvin nearly swerved into a mailbox, fumbling to lock the frequency. "Yo, Phin, we got a hit! 435.2 MHz, short and sweet. Sounded like garbled junk - definitely our ghost!"

Calvin skidded to a stop, grinning like a kid who'd just hacked a game cheat code. "Rad! Strength at S5 means we're warm, not hot. Keep rollin' - next antenna's two miles out. Bet it jumps when we're closer."

They pedaled harder, adrenaline pumping as the suburban sprawl unfolded - cul-de-sacs, manicured lawns, the occasional dog barking at their passing blur. The map showed their first target, a known ham setup near Elmwood Drive, but as they neared, the signal stayed flat. A quick loop around the block confirmed it: no spikes, no garble, just the hum of distant repeaters. "Strike one," Phineas grunted, wiping sweat from his brow. "Three more to check."

The second and third sites, scattered across a patchwork of quiet streets, yielded similar busts. Antennas loomed on rooftops or masts, some sporting Yagis or verticals clearly tuned for UHF, but the handheld radio remained stubbornly silent beyond the odd flicker of unrelated chatter. Frustration crept in, tempered only by the knowledge that their bearing was solid - math didn't lie, even if asphalt and brick walls did.

It was nearing 4:00 PM when they approached the fourth and final target, a 30-foot mast bristling with half a dozen antennas near the edge of their search radius on Pine Hollow Lane. From a block away, it looked serious - dipoles, beams, even a satellite dish - screaming the presence of a hardcore ham or a small-scale tower junkie. Before they could speculate, the radio erupted again, a burst of static and distorted speech - "mumble-mumble-hello?" - hitting S8 on the meter.

Phineas slammed on his brakes, nearly toppling over as he stared at the display. "PHin, we're hot! S8, strongest yet, and it's live right now!" The signal faded after five seconds, but the thrill lingered. Phineas circled back, pointing at the mast looming over a modest two-story house. "That's our spot, bruh. Signal strength don't lie at this range. Rubber duck's omnidirectional, but S8 means we've nailed it. Let's scope it."

They dismounted, leaning their bikes against a curb and approaching the property with a mix of bravado and caution. The mast was a beast, guy-wired to the ground, antennas arrayed like a techie's Christmas tree. A 70 cm Yagi was visible among the clutter, its elements glinting in the late afternoon sun - a prime suspect for their phantom transmissions. But a serious ham running this setup wouldn't likely be the source of random QRM; licensed operators knew better than to spew interference, especially in a contest-heavy band. Something didn't add up, and the boys felt the weight of it as they trudged up the driveway.

Phineas, ever the impulsive spark, rapped on the front door while Calvin hung back, scanning for another burst. The door creaked open after a long pause, revealing a small figure - a girl, no older than seven, with wide eyes and a nervous fidget. Her blonde pigtails bounced as she tilted her head, clutching the doorframe like a lifeline.

 "Hi," she mumbled, barely audible. "Who're you?" Phineas stepped forward, softening his usually gruff tone. "Hey, kiddo, we're just looking for whoever's got that big antenna setup out back. Are your parents home?" The girl shook her head, her voice small. "No, they're at work. I'm alone 'til five."

Calvin exchanged a glance with Phineas, a flicker of concern passing between them. This wasn't the grizzled ham they'd expected, nor some punk kid with a bootleg rig. This was… complicated.

"Uh, do your mom or dad mess with radios a lot?" Phineas pressed gently, gesturing toward the mast. The girl nodded, brightening a bit. "Yeah, both of them. They got licenses and stuff. Talk to people far away." Calvin, sensing an opening, crouched to her level, keeping his tone light despite the sinking feeling in his gut. "That's cool. You ever play with their gear when they're not here? Like, push buttons or talk on the microphone?"

The girl's face froze, then crumpled. Her eyes welled up, and a whimper escaped as she nodded, barely a whisper. "Sometimes. I just… I wanted to hear voices. I didn't mean to mess it up." Phineas sighed, running a hand through his hair, while Calvin patted the air in a calming gesture. "Hey, no stress, okay? We just gotta chat about why that's not safe. Can we wait 'til your folks get back?"

The situation was a gut punch. This wasn't malice or negligence from a rogue operator; it was a curious child, left unsupervised, fiddling with gear she couldn't possibly understand. Transmitting without a license was a clear violation of FCC rules, and at 70 cm, even low-power bursts could disrupt a wide swath of operators, as they had for weeks. Worse, her parents - licensed hams, no less - could face fines or license suspension for failing to secure their station. And then there was the specter of Child Protective Services, a bureaucracy neither boy wanted to tangle with. They were in deep, balancing ethics against empathy, legality against leniency.

As they waited on the porch, the handheld silent for now, Phineas muttered under his breath. "Field Day's in four days, Cal. We fix this quiet, or the band's toast. But snitchin' on a kid? That ain't our vibe." Phineas nodded, jaw tight. "We talk to the parents, lay it out straight. No harm done yet, but it stops now. FCC doesn't need to know if we keep it low-key."

It was a gamble, but one rooted in a code as old as ham radio itself: protect the community, even if it meant bending the edges of the rulebook when unintentional acts were at play. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows over Pine Hollow Lane, as the boys steeled themselves for a conversation no teenager should have to navigate.

The spectral signal had a face now, small and tear-streaked, and resolving this standoff would take more than tech - it would take heart.

As the clock ticked toward 5:00 o'clock, Calvin and Phineas lingered on the porch of the Pine Hollow Lane house, an awkward pair of sentinels guarding a secret they hadn't asked to uncover. The little girl, whose name they'd learned was Emily, sat cross-legged just inside the door, clutching a stuffed rabbit as if it could shield her from the mess she'd stumbled into. The radio, propped on Calvin's knee, remained silent, its S-meter flat - a small mercy, as another burst now would only complicate things.

Phineas fidgeted, tracing patterns in the porch dust with a sneaker, while Calvin stared at the 30-foot mast in the backyard, its array of antennas a silent accusation of negligence. "Bruh, this is heavy," Calvin muttered, keeping his voice low so Emily wouldn't hear. "Kid's just curious, messing with gear she doesn't understand. But her folks? They gotta know better. Locking a shack when they're not around isn't rocket science." Phineas nodded, his usual stoic demeanor tinged with unease. "Facts. FCC'd throw the book at them - fines, maybe yank their licenses for not securing the rig. And CPS? That's a whole other dumpster fire. We can't drop that on a family over some QRM."

Their dilemma was a tightrope. Amateur radio operated under strict federal guidelines: no unlicensed transmissions, period, except in the case of an emergency. Emily's innocent button-pushing, likely on a rig left powered up and accessible, had sent spurious signals across the 70 cm band, disrupting hams for weeks. At 435 MHz, even a low-power handheld could propagate decently in line-of-sight conditions - especially with a high quality antenna mounted way up on a mast - and a base station like her parents' could punch farther. The garbled speech - her childish attempts at "hello" - matched the reports. It wasn't malicious, but it was illegal, and with Field Day just days away, the risk of further interference loomed large. Yet reporting it officially felt like overkill, a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, especially when the wider harm was minimal - annoyance, not catastrophe.

When headlights finally swept the driveway at 5:10, both boys straightened, a mix of relief and dread settling in. Emily's parents - a wiry man in a polo shirt and a woman with a tired smile - stepped out of an SUV, their expressions shifting from curiosity to concern at the sight of two unfamiliar teens on their porch.

"Can we help you?" the man asked, voice cautious as and his wife approach the house. Emily darted to her mother, burying her face in a hug, which only deepened the couple's worry.

Phineas took the lead, his bulk lending a gravitas his age belied. "Sir, ma'am, we're local hams - amateur radio operators. Call signs PH1NES and CA1VIN. We're tracking some interference on the 70 cm band, and… well, it led us here. We talked to Emily, and she admitted to playin' with your gear while you're out. We're not here to cause drama, just to sort this before it's a bigger issue." The woman's face paled, her hand tightening on Emily's shoulder, while the man's jaw clenched. "Interference?" he echoed, stepping inside and motioning them to follow. "We're both licensed - W9DAD and W9MOM. Our station's in the garage. I… I didn't think she could get to it. Is this serious?"

Calvin, sensing the tension, kept his tone light but firm. "Kinda, yeah. She's been keyin' the mic, sending random bursts. It's been messing with local ops for weeks, mostly after school and Saturday morning's. No real damage, but Field Day's coming, and that band's got to be clear. Plus, FCC rules - unlicensed TX is a no-go. We figured we'd talk first, not report."

The garage revealed the setup: a tidy ham shack with an expensive transceiver, capable of 70 cm operation at up to the legal limit of 1,500 watts PEP (peak envelope power), connected to the mast's Yagi via low-loss coax. Power was off now, but a key left in plain sight suggested easy access.

Emily's father rubbed his neck, shame creeping into his voice. "We lock it sometimes, but… she's sneaky. I didn't think she'd figure out how to work the microphone. We've been swamped at work. What's the damage?"

Calvin laid it out, clinical but kind. "Signal logs show bursts matching her schedule - 3 to 5 PM weekdays, early Saturdays. We triangulated it with Yagis and an AoA calculation to your mast. No fines or complaints filed yet, but if it keeps up, especially during Field Day, someone might report it. FCC could hit you with penalties - hundreds, maybe thousands - an/or suspend your licenses for negligence. And if they think she's unsupervised too much, CPS might poke around. We don't want that. We just want the band clear."

Emily's mother knelt, hugging her daughter tighter as tears welled. "Sweetie, why didn't you tell us? That equipment's dangerous if you don't know how to use it." Emily sniffled, voice muffled. "I just wanted to talk to someone. I heard voices and thought… friends."

The room hung heavy with guilt and understanding, a child's loneliness colliding with adult oversight. Calvin, ever the problem-solver, cut through the silence. "Look, folks, here's the play. Lock this rig down - keypad code, power switch off, whatever. Teach her it's off-limits 'til she's older, maybe start her on studying for a Tech license down the road. We won't say a word to the net or the FCC if the interference stops now. Field Day's in three days; we're checking the band until then. No more bursts, no prob. Deal?"

The parents exchanged a look, relief mingling with gratitude. The father extended a hand, voice gruff. "Deal. I'll install a lockbox tonight. We owe you for handling this discreetly. Didn't expect kids your age to… well, be this professional." Phineas shook the hand, smirking. "We're hams, sir. Airwaves are family. We look after our own."

As they biked home under a darkening sky, the weight of the day settled on their shoulders, but it was a good weight. They'd dodged a bureaucratic nightmare, spared a family undue grief, and - if the parents held up their end - saved the 70 cm band from chaos.

Calvin whooped into the dusk, pedaling ahead. "We're straight-up legends, Phin! Signal sleuths for the win!" Phineas just chuckled, the handheld radio clipped to his belt a quiet reminder of a job well done. Field Day was close, and they'd just cleared the field.

Three days later, Field Day dawned with the kind of crisp clarity that made every ham in the region itch to hit the airwaves. Across parks, backyards, and makeshift stations, operators set up rigs, strung antennas, and fired up generators, chasing points through contacts near and far. The 70 cm band, a sweet spot for UHF enthusiasts seeking line-of-sight DX, hummed with activity - but not with interference.

Calvin and Phineas, stationed in a corner of a local park under a tarp-draped table, monitored their portable transceiver with hawk-like focus. Their logs filled steadily with call signs from across states and even a few international catches, each QSO a small triumph. "70 cm band's clean as a whistle, except for legit traffic," Phineas noted, scribbling a contact with a VE3 station in Ontario. "No ghost signals, no QRM. Emily's folks locked it down." Calvin nodded, tweaking their Yagi for a better shot at a Midwest repeater. "Checked logs last night too. Nada since we talked. They got the message. We pulled it off just in time for the big show."

The park buzzed with ham radio fervor, a carnival of tech and camaraderie. Nearby, grizzled operators swapped stories of past Field Days, while younger hams fiddled with SDR dongles and laptops. The local net crackled over a speaker, voices marveling at the sudden clarity on 70 cm.

"Ain't heard that junk signal in days," one op mused. "Must've burned out whatever rig was causin' it. Perfect timin' for the contest!"

Calvin and Phineas exchanged a glance, lips twitching with the urge to spill their secret. They'd slain the spectral signal, turned a standoff into a save, but boasting would risk exposing Emily's family - a risk they wouldn't take.

As the afternoon wore on, racking up points with every "CQ Field Day"⁸ call, their eyes caught a familiar trio near a neighboring setup. Emily, pigtails bouncing, clung to her mother's hand, while her father adjusted a portable antenna. Their rig was modest today, a handheld with a whip antenna, no threat to the band. The father spotted the boys, offering a subtle nod, while Emily's mother mouthed a silent "thank you."

Calvin winked back, tapping his headset, and Phineas tipped an imaginary cap. The message was clear: the secret was safe, the airwaves were safe, and a little grace had gone a long way.

By sunset, as Field Day wound down and logs were tallied, the boys packed their gear with a quiet satisfaction. They'd logged over fifty contacts on 70 cm alone, a personal best, and the band's clarity had been a gift to every ham in earshot.

The spectral signal standoff was over, resolved not with fines or fury but with a handshake and a lockbox. It wasn't the kind of victory that earned QSL cards or contest plaques, but it was theirs, etched in the unspoken code of the ham community: protect the spectrum, protect each other.

As they biked home, gear rattling in backpacks, Calvin let out a final whoop. "We're the GOATs⁹, Phin! Saved the day, kept it low key."

1 QTH is Hamspeak for location.

2 QSL is Hamspeak for acknowledging receipt of transmission.

3 QRM is Hamspeak for manmade radio interference.

4 DX is Hamspeak for long distance communications.

5 RDF is radio direction finding.

6 FCC is Federal Communications commission.

7 AoA is angle of arrival.

8 CQ is Hamspeak for "seek you" when calling on the radio.

9 GOAT is greatest of all time.

By Kirt Blattenberger,
     KB3UON, AE