Yeah, it's like an annual migration for ham radio operators. Almost everyone participates in field day in one way or another. For one thing, it lets you know what you have to do to get your station on the air if commercial power fails.
People think that with the Internet and cell phones everywhere, radio communication isn't necessary. Problem is, as soon as the power goes out, that technology is gone. Plus, both are subject to attack. Police and fire communication is okay when things are good. However, those services are segmented, encrypted, and trunked on multiple frequencies, which means they need computers to be fully effective.
Ham radio equipment has been called into service before and is the only completely reliable communication when there is widespread outage or disaster. There are some rigs out there that still use vacuum tubes that would survive an EMS burst.
