| EI9KC (2nd from left) and Anthony |
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| The sky is always blue in Cumbria! |
I made it to the 2013 Dayton Hamvention this year, after a multi-year absence. Due to that four-letter word known as work, I was not able to arrive until really late Friday night. That left all day Saturday and the half day on Sunday to partake of the event.
I’ll start with the obligatory dig at Hara Arena, repeating my tweet:
Hara Arena continues to be everything that I wish it wasn’t.
Check out the posts by Jeff KE9V and Steve K9ZW about their impressions of Hamvention.
I spent some time helping out at the HamRadioSchool.com booth in the north hall. Wow, what a positive response we got from that effort. Stu W0STU’s Technician and General Class books have really hit their mark, finding a good balance between covering the material to pass the FCC exams while also helping students to really get it. We heard quite a few instructors stop by and say “This is what I have been looking for!” If you are teaching a ham radio licensing class, you need to check out the HamRadioSchool.com books….and the companion web site and iOS apps.
One of the high points of the weekend was discovering the poster-size front cover of Summer 2013 CQ VHF with my mountaintop photo on it. Joyce K0JJW took a great shot of me operating from Mt Sneffels last August (Colorado 14er Event and SOTA), so it was an excellent complement to my article: “A Little Mountaintop Operation”.
So I leave Dayton, thinking about the highs and lows for the weekend. There was not much new that really caught my attention. (Disclaimer: I am sure I didn’t see everything there.) I am still looking for an FT-950 with 2 Meters, an Android HT and a D-STAR radio from Kenwood, Yaesu or even Alinco. Also, there is a real trend of vaporware instead of products. I’ve gotten really jaded about this. If a company can’t quote price and delivery, then it doesn’t exist in my world.
As K9ZW pointed out, much of the fun of Dayton is being with great people: some old friends (like my bud Denny KB9DPF) and some new ones, too.
How was your Hamvention?
73, Bob K0NR

For one reason or another, I'm a bit late starting my bicycle portable trips this year. For one thing, the weather hasn't been great. I went to get my bike out a couple of days ago and found that it had a (not so slow) puncture. Amazon came to the rescue with a new inner tube!
So it was today that I set out with a rucksack on my back containing the FT817 and a 50MHz whip (thanks again Ian, MW0IAN). I had a great ride along the banks of the Thames, around 13 miles in total. I stopped a couple of times to get the rig out and have a listen. Typically, the band was flat - just the GB3RAL and GB3BAA beacons audible - which I guess wasn't bad going with a whip, down at river level.
And even if there was no propagation, I love being by the river....

The summer highlight RadioSport event is about to transform the ionosphere and test the metal of high frequency operators this weekend yet not a word at the blog nor tweet in the #hamr flow. I do not want to speculate neither state directly my thoughts however am I missing something? After all, CQ Magazine's summer signature event recently changed leadership, as Randy, K5ZD was promoted into the CQ World Wide DX chair.
I'm curious why the silence especially given past interaction either at the blog or Facebook generated tweets?
The standard of interaction was set and it created a sense of excitement especially for those of us who connected during WPX SSB weekend. Our tweets were seen world wide as we road the storm into Saturday afternoon when reports suggested rapidly changing conditions while lifting everyone's morale. We certainly enjoyed every minute thereafter until the finish clock signalled zero hour on Sunday late afternoon.
In the meantime, I'm listening to Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive" as my theme song heading into CQ Magazine's signature summer event, wondering if I'll detect any transmission from the 'new' leadership at CQ WPX?
73 from the shackadelic near the beach.
A few of us have dabbled in the UKAC series run by the RSGB this year. Andrew, G4VFL leads the pack both in terms of experience and points. But a few others have dipped their toes in what is a very relaxed evening series. So far the club is holding its own at 28th place out of a little over 90 entrants. the full tables are here and show how far we’ve come in a few short months. Most of the points come from portable operations with the Corney fell site looking like the most accessible and profitable in terms of points.
Hopefully as the weather gets better IO84 will get busier and the contest bug will bite as well as increasing local activity on the vhf bands outside of the contests
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