[TWIAR] Dayton Hamvention 2002 Crowd Rises Above "The Big Chill"

[Greg Williams]

NEWINGTON, CT, May 22, 2002--Exuberance and enthusiasm at Dayton Hamvention
2002 by and large overcame the rainy, then unseasonably chilly, weather
during the three-day event. Pre-Hamvention speculation about a considerably
smaller turnout in this post-September 11 era, also seemed to have been off
the mark. This year's Dayton crowd appeared to be just about as large as
last year's. Hamvention officials are not expected to release an attendance
figure until next week at the earliest.

"Having attended many Hamventions since 1976, I can attest that this was the
chilliest since the event was moved from April to May," said ARRL
Certification and Continuing Education Program Coordinator Dan Miller,
K3UFG. "Despite that, it appeared to draw just as large a crowd as ever."

ARRL Advertising Account Manager Joe Bottiglieri, AA1GW, agreed, noting that
sales activity was brisk.

ARRL Media Relations Manager Jennifer Hagy, N1TDY, said she was gratified to
hear a lot of positive comments about the League. "Several people came up
and thanked the staff on hand and everyone at Headquarters for doing such a
great job on their behalf," she said.

Miller noted the first C-CE banquet on Friday went well despite bad weather
and traffic snarls. "We've decided to make this an annual event for mentors
and instructors who attend the Dayton festivities," he said. Marty
Mendelson, N8MG, received the first Mentor Special Recognition Award for his
dedication and contributions as a C-CE Mentor/Instructor.

Although Hamvention typically provides a suitable occasion to debut the
latest equipment, many attendees agreed that manufacturers had fewer new
major items on display than in past years.

Yaesu showed its new "portable base station" FT-897 HF/VHF/UHF
transceiver--a pumped-up version of the highly popular and diminutive
FT-817--as well as its FT-8900R four-band FM transceiver and VX-7R
hand-held, among other products.

Ten-Tec displayed a prototype of its new top-of-the-line Orion transceiver,
which will replace the OMNI series of HF transceivers. Ten-Tec says the
Orion will be available later this year. The Tennessee company also showed
its new Argonaut V IF-DSP 20 W transceiver for HF.

ICOM debuted its new IC-2720 dual-band mobile and had its D-Star digital
"concept radio" system on display.

Elecraft showed its new 100 W K2 HF transceiver as well as the K2 amplifier
accessory add-on for existing K2s.

At the ARRL Forum Saturday morning, President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, took the
podium to thank those attending for being League members. "Thank you for
letting us do the things we do," he said. Those activities, he added, focus
on keeping Amateur Radio's frequencies and serving ARRL members.

In the spirit of the Hamvention's theme of emergency communications,
Haynie--responding to a question--noted that hams are resourceful in
emergency situations. "It's what you know through your experience of
becoming a ham radio operator," he said, "not just providing
communications."

Haynie ticked off a list of recent ARRL accomplishments, including the
recent FCC Notice of Proposed Rule Making in response to League petitions to
give amateurs a new HF band at 5 MHz and a new LF band at 136 kHz in
addition to elevating amateurs to primary at 2400-2402 MHz. He also urged
support for H.R. 4720, which would apply the PRB-1 limited federal
preemption to deed covenants, conditions and restrictions--CC&Rs--just as it
now applies to public land-use regulations.

"That's going to be a tough row to hoe," Haynie conceded in assessing the
bill's chances. "It's not going to be easy, but if there was ever a time in
the history of Amateur Radio that we could do this, it's now," he said,
referring to September 11. "We're very visible."

Just back from World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 preparations in
Geneva, ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, relayed the latest
news regarding plans to establish a "harmonized" worldwide 300-kHz
allocation at 40 meters. Sumner said it appears that an earlier proposal to
possibly move the lower band edge down to 6900 kHz "pretty much came off the
table" a few months ago. Sumner said a more current, and favorable, proposal
eventually would shift broadcasting activity above 7300 kHz, leaving a
7000-7300 kHz worldwide amateur allocation.

At the FCC Forum that followed ARRL's on Saturday, the FCC's Bill Cross,
W3TN, discussed the various Amateur Radio-related petitions now before the
FCC as well as the recent NPRM proposing new LF and HF bands and making
Amateur Radio primary at 2400-2402 MHz. Cross attempted to dispel the myth
that the FCC is at the center of Amateur Radio. Nothing could be further
from the truth," he said. The reality is that thousands of amateurs are
voluntarily self-training "simply because you want to learn more about
something that is of interest to you," he said.

Beyond enforcement, maintaining the licensee database and administering the
rules, the FCC's role in Amateur Radio "is pretty minimal," Cross said. In
discussing the various regulatory requests received from the amateur
community, Cross repeatedly made the point that the FCC prefers not to
"micromanage" the rules, and he cautioned against asking for rule changes
that could have unintended consequences.

FCC Special Counsel for Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth said Amateur Radio
operators "have a lot to be proud of." Amateurs have the "only fail-safe
system" of communication, he said.

But, Hollingsworth said, there still are too many amateurs "who want to
screw around" on the air. "To the extent that you tolerate these violations,
you contribute to the decline of Amateur Radio," he said. As he's done in
the past, Hollingsworth also cautioned amateurs to be aware of how they
might sound to others on the air. Paraphrasing Edward R. Murrow,
Hollingsworth pointed out that just because you can be heard halfway around
the world doesn't mean you're any wiser than when your voice "only traveled
to the end of the bar."

Behavior such as arguing and infighting on the air "will destroy Amateur
Radio faster than any rules violations," Hollingsworth said. He asked
rhetorically if getting in the last word in an on-air argument was "worth
taking Amateur Radio one step closer to extinction." Even worse, he added,
is that such behavior also distracts the FCC enforcement effort from more
substantive situations, such as intruders on 10 meters.

"We're on the verge of great things," Hollingsworth concluded, urging
amateurs to not take the naysayers and detractors within Amateur Radio
seriously.

ARRL Lab Supervisor Ed Hare, W1RFI--a low-power enthusiast--said he could
hardly imagine more enthusiasm than he found at the QRP Amateur Radio Club
International's "Four Days in May" event held in conjunction with
Hamvention. "The QRPers exhibited an enthusiasm that really is contagious,"
Among the highlights, the Dayton-area Flying Pigs QRP Club sponsored a
"buildathon," where they helped new hams and old timers alike build the
North Georgia QRP club SWR meter project. Hare also was a featured speaker
at the RF Safety Forum, headlined by RF Safety Committee Chairman Greg
Lapin, N9GL.

A highlight of ARRL's Dayton Hamvention-related activities was the inaugural
ARRL Major Donor Reception, hosted by Chief Development Officer Mary Hobart,
K1MMH. Nobel Prize laureate and QST author Joe Taylor, K1JT, was the guest
of honor as the League recognized donors who have generously supported ARRL
fund-raising campaigns. Now the dean of faculty at Princeton University,
Taylor was first licensed at an early age, and he regaled the audience with
tales of his formative years as a young amateur building gear with parts
from cast-off TV sets.

Inactive for several years as his professional endeavors burgeoned, Taylor
got back into the hobby in 1999 and started applying his professional
knowledge to Amateur Radio, applying some of the techniques successful in
digging extremely weak signals from the stars. Taylor won the 1993 Nobel
Prize in Physics for the discovery of the first orbiting pulsar. He's most
recently known in the amateur community for his development of the WSJT
software for meteor-scatter and other weak-signal communication work. (See
"WSJT: New Software for VHF Meteor-Scatter Communication," by Joe Taylor,
K1JT, QST, Dec 2001.)

A historical sidelight: The event was held in the rooms where the Dayton
Peace Accord was signed. ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ,
and President Haynie included presentation of Education & Technology Fund
gifts to Kay and Carter Craigie, WT3P and N3AO, and to David Brandenberg,
K5RQ, to recognized their extraordinary generosity to the ARRL Education and
Technology Program--"The Big Project."

Hobart shared her perspective as both a new ham and a first-timer at Dayton
Hamvention. "I loved it!" she said. "I found Hamvention seemingly full of
every conceivable instrument and gadget known to man!" she said. Then there
were the people. Hobart said she enjoyed meeting everyone and being able to
put a "face" on Amateur Radio. "Each person I met had a story to tell," she
said, "and that's what made it so fascinating." Hobart also said she felt
proud to be a small part of the family that made her feel at home.