[MRCA] Hamvention 2025

[Ray Fantini]

I have a templet in Word for throwing together a After Action Report (AAR) and almost always use that being have often been told my writing and espicaley spelling skills are sadly lacking, but decided this time I would skip that and do this in a narrative format.

Dayton / Xenia Hamvention, 2025

Bernie and I arrived Thursday and started the setup, usually do Fair Radio on Thursday but being that's no more Thursday now has become the set up day. Bought and sold a bunch of stuff. Lot more traffic than you would think for a day before the official kick off of the event. All the Kings were there, the people like Nick England, K4NYW and Jim Karlow (KA8TUR) were on site well before me. I did not get out of the site until five or six that evening.

Friday started early and they were packed. No idea on attendance yet and will see that later but they had what I would assume to be a heavy turnout.
This Friday saw a 5357 (channel 3) USB Military radio net at fifteen hundred hours. We had about a dozen stations check into that net almost all using military equipment.
Most military backpack and field equipment for beyond line of sight has been USB for decades now and this is an opportunity to put that stuff back in service. Had PRC-74, PRC-70 and a lot of newer sets on line and maybe someday we can get someone to drag a PRC-47 out and they will get special mention. I ran the Harris five thousand hardware as NCS.

Saturday arrived early and had to get everything in place for the MMRCG Teletype net at 0900 that morning, used the Harris five thousand stuff again with the 125 watt amplifier and a low inverted  V antenna. Had issues with local interference and atmospherics sucked all weekend so only was able to work Ron, K3TZJ but did copy a couple station running rtty at Hamvention along with parts of the other distant stations.
At noon used a BC-654 transmitter receiver for the NCS on the 3885 WW2 Backpack Radio Net. Ok, I will admit that maybe I was a small bit off frequency but beyond that we had over a dozen check-ins including two people running BC-611 handhelds.
The 51.0 Cold War FM Net was the bomb! Man, there must have been over thirty stations that checked in. Feel sorry for Karlow running NCS for that being he had way too much traffic. They did split check in and opps for the net up but they were packing them in. Radios from PRC-25/77, PRR and PTT 9 sets and tons of other stuff up on line. Some tone some not, some wide band and others narrow. But fun was there for all.
Looking at the pictures you can see if you're into military stuff it was there to be had. I thought prices were good but what do I know?  I bought a Ludlum model 2 with Alpha head and new batteries for $100, the guy had a table of them for $100 each along with a ton of older instruments and best of all two tubs of uranium rocks for $5 each that you can use to play with your new counter. I Also picked up a GRC-215 transceiver in the backpack configuration for a new toy.
Rumors were rampant that a certain individual who is known for selling connectors had a huge lot of PRR/PTT-9 sets they wanted to sell cheap but don't know if anything happened with that.

Have said it before and will say it again, if you were not there you missed out.

Ray F/KA3EKH
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