[SMCARA] Dayton report

[Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS]

Well, another Dayton Hamvention has gone into the record book.  No official word on attendance, but the figure of 22,000 was being chatted up. The HARA Arena has gotten a year older and a year shabbier! What's left of the pavement in the flea market area has become more or less a patchwork of potholes loosely held together with black top!  One item of improvement that I saw was that all the rest rooms were functional, clean, and stocked with paper products and plenty of Porta-Potties were available.  A far cry from the "S**t Storm" that occurred in 2011!  Having said all that, it was still Dayton and is all part of the "experience" that is Hamvention.  Somehow I can't imagine the Hamvention being held in a sparkling new and sterile venue - the atmosphere just wouldn't be the same.

I was fortunate to again join my friends from the Lansing MI area at their Airstream trailer Hamfest base camp! At a high school reunion a few years ago, I caught up with a pal from our high school radio club, Joe, W8JRK. Joe and I got our ham tickets through the Greenwich High School radio club, back in the 50's, when every school had a radio club! Joe was K1GMR and I was K1AST. He invited me to join his group, not so much a club, but a bunch of friends, at their trailer.  Imagine going to a Hamfest and not having to drag all the "acquisitions" around with you!  Add the fact that you can sit down, grab a cold drink from the fridge, and make a nice sandwich. Like most hamfests, the food is marginal, although there was a guy grilling Brats that smelled pretty good! And, he was doing a "land office" business as well!

The flea market was incredible, with nearly anything imaginable available.  Many small dealers (mom and pops) were selling everything from components, soldering stations, software, kits, coax (yes, Joel of RF Connection was there!). I lost count of the number of folks selling wire antenna kits.  Used to be you just bought some wire, a couple of egg insulators, and built your own!  One guy was selling used test equipment, etc. by the pound out of a big U-Haul! I was able to sell off a couple of my boatanchors and a some of the estate sale stuff.

The inside exhibits consisted of everyone who is anyone in ham radio.  You name a manufacturer and they had a booth. Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood, Elecraft, Flex-Radio, Ten Tec, all the dealers, large and small too.  MTC had a big setup in the flea market and there was always a huge crowd- they were pricing to sell.  An interesting effect is the Hamfest special, usually a discounted price available just at the 'fest.  A noticeable exception this year was the ICOM 7300, they were flying off the shelves at list price! Most dealers sold out by Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. The show runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with setup on Thursday afternoon.

This year is Yaesu's 60th anniversary and they devoted half their booth to a display of all their ham gear back to the beginning., lots of tube stuff! The other half seemed to be devoted to "Fusion" gear. Bob Heil had his normal microphone display and demos in "Audio Alley" along with W2IHY and his processors that everyone seems to abuse on the bands with their "enhanced SSB" and "HiFi Audio" signals!  The guy that sells the aluminum soldering paste, who seems to be at every Hamfest, was there demoing how to solder beer cans! Gordon West is always a fixture, although he didn't wear his Tux and Bow Tie this year! The new management of the ARRL were at the gigantic ARRL booth, that featured every department from the league.  Newington must have been a ghost town with everyone at the booth! The RSGB from the UK, DARC from Germany, and other foreign societies had booths as well.  If you wanted to join the Kuwaiti or Emirates radio societies, just visit their booth!

Our evenings were devoted to finding the finest eating establishments in Dayton!  We were successful.

The 9 hour drive is a bit of a drag, but 146.52 simplex was constantly in use.  I tried 10 M SSB, but the bands are pretty poor these days and I only heard one station and he was too weak to make a QSO. Book your hotels early, as in this week, so you will have a place to rest your tired feet! If you are an airplane nut, as some of us are, be sure to carve out some time to visit the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton. Fantastic place, every bit as good as the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola.

All in all, another great success.  Dayton is like Mecca, you must make it at least once in your lifetime, to complete your ham radio experience!

Tom 
W4OKW, ex K1AST, WA4DGM, TF0AA (we had a call, but never were allowed to operate!), EA7BXP, VP2MTC, J6/W4OKW