Hamcation in Orlando is this weekend. I will not be attending. Can only do one big event a year and Dayton (Xenia) is it. Everyone knows that due to Covid Dayton has been canceled for the last two years and this will be the first year its returning.
Much conversation over will it be as big as before? Will this be the beginning of the end and all that sort of stuff concerning Dayton? Now whenever you talk about Dayton Hamcation down in Florida also comes up.
Some have proposed that the Florida event is almost as large as Dayton and maybe this year it will tie or exceed attendance at Dayton, that’s yet to be determined.
The big question for me is about the Flea market and what will be happening there, I can care less about the buildings full of new gear, SDR, Software and how small you can make a radio has little interest to me. I am there for the flea market and what’s out in the fields.
It has been proposed that Hamcation would have a poor-quality flea market due to the majority of people in the region who attend are transplants from other parts of the country and in many cases have sold off all their collections before relocating to the south. That along with most of the attendees are modern or appliance type Hams who are there for seeing what vendors are peddling in the form of the latest skins for your SDR, you know the thing where you have virtual screws in the corners of the screen and if its better to have Phillips or hex head for the virtual screws?
I know there is a lot of that at Dayton also, know several that attend Dayton and never go over to the horse track but just stay in the confines of the vendor village.
The question is what is the quality of the flea market at Hamcation and how it compares with the Horse track at Xenia? Will be looking for reports from the field, being it’s never too early to start making plans for 2023 and like I said can only afford to do one of the events.
A footnote:
I am not anti-technology, it’s just that I have to work with it all day and the last thing I want to do when I am off is deal with troubleshooting software and updating drivers. FT8 and unattended contacts just don’t do it for me.
Ray F/KA3EKH