Hamvention 2014 Reviewed - Part 1

The 2014 Dayton Hamvention® is now history for another year. As mentioned in my previous blog entry, this was the first year that I attended this ham radio extravaganza. It was everything that I had come to expect and a bit more. It's hard to realize the scale of such an event until you actually take part. I've seen the articles, the pictures, the reviews but actually attending the Hamvention® put things into perspective for me. The highlight was attending with my long time very close friend, Sean KL1SF. Sean had been to the Hamvention® before but it had been several years. So together, we spent all day Friday and a large part of Saturday roaming the ham hallways both inside and out. 

Being this was my first ever Dayton Hamvention® experience, it was ham sensory overload. Like a new ham turning on their radio during a contest weekend, I had no idea where to start and it was a bit overwhelming. But like managing a pileup, we hit the vendor booths one at at time. This is the "Kid in the Candy Store" part for of the Hamvention®. Hams are encourage to touch and get up close and personal with all sorts of ham radio equipment. It's one thing to see advertisements in your favorite ham radio magazines but it's another to actually see your dream equipment sitting on a table or shelf directly in front of you. There are towers standing tall and antenna's erected inside buildings. The ham per square foot ratio is greater than any DX pileup I've experienced. At the start, it reminded me of Boston traffic!

I've owned and operated many an Icom HF radio over the years. My main HF radio is the Icom 756PRO, currently boxed indefinitely. Like most anything electronic, the radio is really not that old but in the electronic world, my purchased year 2000, 756PRO is vintage. With that said, if there is a day I build another station, I will be in the market for a second radio as PRO parts by then, will probably be tough to come by. The photo to the left is Sean, KL1SF getting some hands on time with the Icom, IC-7800. Yep, I would love to spend some quality time with that HF rig! But for now, being able to see it lit up like a Christmas tree and being able to give the VFO a test spin or two, will have to do. Either way, it's at the top of my would love to own list. 

Sean, KL1SF has been extremely active with APRS for many years. Sean actually got me interested in running it. Sean had an iGate in Denali for several years and is now running APRS and doing the same at the Grand Canyon. So, anything APRS catches his attention. I have two Kenwood D-700A's that I use. Here is Sean checking out the latest Kenwood APRS 710 series radio. Of course, of all the APRS rigs that are out there, the Yaesu FTM-400DR is the one we both were excited to look at. It appears that the unit is all inclusive and all you need to do is install and you are on your way! Internal GPS and APRS capability built under the hood. And they apparently went quickly as it was not long before they were hard to find. Had I not already had two Kenwood's, I'm sure Sean would of helped talk me into taking one home with me. That's what ham friends do!

Another rig that has been receiving great reviews is the Kenwood TS-590. Some have even been comparing it as an equal to the K3! And this radio was one I also had my eye on. I will never have a BIG station and I'm always looking for the best bang for my buck. Lower middle class buck that is. This rig, along with a few in the Yaesu line are what I would consider affordable. I'm still in awe today that there is a market for a $6,000-$10,000 radio! Me, I'm in the $2,500 or less, preferably less. As mentioned before, it was nice to get some one on one time with several radios at the Dayton Hamvention®. It's hard not to pull out the plastic and walk away with a large box but since I don't really have a station at the moment, it was much easier to resist temptation. Of course, like a good ham who is trying to support the economy, I had intentions of spending some money and that I did. But more on that later.

The big celebration at the Dayton Hamvention® was of course the 100th Birthday of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). The Centennial celebration has been in full swing for several months. Even for the inactive ham like myself, I've been reading about all the special event stations and activities surrounding this special birthday. We spent a bit of time roaming the ARRL area. Sean, like many who are roaming the ham hallways, had is Handie-Talkie (HT) with him. The ARRL lab folks were on hand to give free testing for any and all HT's! What a service! The good news was, his HT was diagnosed as functionally clean and as his wife will attest, his transmitter was working just fine. 

Another perk of attending big events such as the Hamvention® was all the free stuff! Yes, us hams, we love our free stuff! Like the free food sample cart in Sam's Club, free stuff will draw a crowd and it can be like a traffic jam during rush hour! I came home with a small collection of free stuff myself. I only snag those things I will use or have a need for, leaving those I don't to others who do. Missing from the photo to the left is my Yaesu ballcap, probably because it was on my head and I forgot all about it. It was also nice to have a bag to carry around not only for all my free stuff but also the stuff that I purchased. Yep, everything I purchased fit nicely into one bag. And just because it was small does not mean that it was cheap! 

There were several more highlights during the Hamvention® all of which I will detail in my next blog, Part 2. I got to meet old friends and new. It was great to finally put some faces with callsigns. The eyeball QSO's were exactly what I had hoped for and as it turns out, there were a few I missed. Even though I probably won't be attending the Hamvention® next year, I'm sure there are a few other ham gatherings that I'll be attending which will allow me to continue to add to the eyeball QSO count. No uploading of data is necessary to confirm those QSO's and in many cases, it beats any award you could hang on the wall.  

  

Dayton 2014 - Contest University

Crowne Plaza Home of The Before, During and After Parties

As our Dayton plans became a reality, one of the events I wanted to attend was the Contest University (CTU) which was held at the Crowne Plaza on the Thursday before the Hamvention. The plan was for me to spend the day here and by the time the seminars were over, my close friend Sean, KL1SF and his family would have arrived at Dayton. I was up early and had my wife drop me off about 30 minutes before registration began. It was a short night as we did not arrive until very late on Wednesday night. Our hotel was about 20 minutes away (normal traffic) from the Crowne Plaza hotel. Even though I was still recovering from our 13 hour drive and late arrival the night before, no snooze button was abused as this was a ham radio event I was excited to attend!

Once I arrived and picked up my Contest University bag of goodies, I grabbed a few small items from the breakfast buffet. I found my seat toward the front of the crowded room and enjoyed my wake-up cup of coffee and light breakfast. I then turned my focused on all those hams in the same room. I started looking at all the callsign badges being worn by all those in attendance. Like a quality control inspector candling at an egg packaging factory, my focus was on all those badges going by me.  

I struck up a conversation with Jim, K5ND who was sitting directly behind me. Jim is very active with Radio Scouting and it was very interesting speaking with Jim in regards to this part of the hobby he is very passionate about. You can find more information at the K2BSA website. I had been involved with scouting at an early age but sadly, nothing in regards to radio was ever discussed around our campfires.

Contest University began with Tim, K3LR welcoming everyone. Tim explained the days happenings and how things were going to play out throughout the remainder of the day. Tim was followed by Randy, K5ZD who discussed Radio Sport Contesting. This is the second time I've heard Randy talk about ham radio. Randy is a great public speaker and his topic, "Let's Do This Right - Radio Sport Contesting" was yet another fantastic presentation. The presentation focused on playing the game (contesting) honestly and fairly. 

Contesting Salon (Room)

For those who have never attended Contest University, there were four Contest Topic Sessions going on at the same time. You review the list (schedule) and decide which topic session (Salon or room) you want to attend. If there happened to be a conflict and two of your favorites were being presented at the same time, there was also a voted rerun of the most popular presentations later in the day. This made it possible (at least for me) to snag a session I missed earlier due to the time conflict. I actually looked at the list prior to leaving for Dayton, so I had my sessions picked out before hand. Each of these sessions are lead by well known contesters and subject matter experts. These sessions ran close to an hour in length and were packed with great information.   

The sessions I attended during the morning and early afternoon are listed below. Of course there were a few sessions I would of liked to attend but I've never perfected being in more than one place at a time. So, I was SO1R, Single Operator 1 Room. Here are those sessions that were at the top of my list to attend;

• The Best Hints to Becoming a Better Contester - N0AX
• The Essentials of RTTY Contesting - W0YK
• Advanced RTTY Contest - W0YK
• The DX Cluster, CW Skimmers & The Reverse Beacon - N6TV

Signing the Attendance Poster

The first session was very informative and Ward covered the basics of becoming a better contester. Anyone starting out in contesting would find Ward's presentation full of great information. The 2nd and 3rd presentations I attended covered my favorite contesting digital mode, RTTY (Radio Teletype). Ed's RTTY sessions were extremely packed with information with little time for Q&A. Thankfully the afternoon sessions were an open discussion format for getting any questions answered that one might have. The Advanced RTTY session was similar to the Essentials of RTTY Contesting session but did expand on a few topics a little bit more. After Ed's Advanced RTTY Contest session, we rolled into lunch. Lunch was of the boxed variety and immediately after lunch, Doug, K1DG gave a presentation regarding the World Radiosport Team Competition (WRTC). It was then followed by Tim, K3LR speaking on Radio Contesting's Future.

During lunch, the highlight for me was meeting Kevin, KL7KY. I had heard Kevin on the radio during many contests while living in Alaska and it was great to finally put a face with a callsign. I sat with Kevin and a few of his fellow Alaskan hams at the Contest Dinner but I will expand on that more in a future blog post. 

The afternoon session by N6TV, Bob covered many of the current modern day spotting methods for Morse Code (CW) and how it all works. One of the things I was excited to learn about was the graphing ability, post contest, from data captured from the Skimmers and the Reverse Beacon Network. In short, it gives you a visual presentation of your signal in regards to how it was being heard around the globe. Also, like a traffic camera at a busy intersection, the Skimmers and Reverse Beacon Network are helping to curb cheating and those who are breaking the rules. Skimmers have sure changed the game in my humble opinion. I prefer contesting unassisted so the only impact I saw was the immediate and crazy pileups when I operated CW contests while in Alaska as KL8DX. You no sooner found a run frequency and the masses showed up. Kinda reminds me of hunting at a hunt club. You can now operate a large part of a contest without touching your VFO. You can continuously click spots on your bandmap and log contacts. But one must remember, not everything spotted is accurate. I bust enough of my own callsigns, I don't need anyone else's help ;0)

Graduate Certficate

I did not attend the entire afternoon sessions as I was more excited to see Sean and his family when they arrived. It had been a few years since we last saw them. They visited with us in Alaska a few years ago on one of their return trips. I did however listen in on a few of the question and answer sessions prior to my early departure. Even though I did not get to attend all the sessions I wanted, it was well worth attending Contest University 2014. The topics were great and the only thing that would of made the experience better would of been if I could have attended all the sessions. Each attendee took home a nice bag of goodies and you know us hams, we love our grab bags of stuff! In the grab bag of stuff was a Contesting University book which had the slides from each of the PowerPoint presentations. So even though I did not get to attend all the sessions, I can still go back and read through each of the slides when time allows.

A tip of the hat goes to Tim, K3LR and all the instructors. There is obviously lots of time and effort that goes into putting Contesting University together. It has something for everyone, even if you are not into contesting. Icom and DX Engineering along with other sponsors made this event possible. I can now cross one more event from my Bucket List.