KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

Hamvention

Some Ham-Vention History

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A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Zoom meeting for the ARDC Grant Evaluation Team. The talk naturally turned to the Dayton Hamvention, which the ARDC folks and I recently attended. At the mention of Hamvention, Lad, WA3EEC, mentioned that he had a brochure for the 1952 Southwestern Ohio Ham-Vention, which was sponsored by the Dayton Amateur Radio Association and held at the Dayton Biltmore Hotel on March 22, 1952. This was the first year that what we now know as the Dayton Hamvention was held.

Lad scanned it for me, and I’m sharing it with you here.

1952 Ham-Vention brochure inside.

1952 Ham-Vention brochure inside

The first thing I’ll note is the strong technical program. The second is the prize list. The third is the manufacturer exhibits. All of these continue to be an important part of Hamvention to this day.

In his email to me, Lad noted, “For the record, Dayton ARA VP,  Ed Pompea, W8FHJ (now SK) was my uncle. He was married to my father’s sister. He passed away more than 30 years ago in Colorado Springs, CO where his call was K0ZPG. He was career Air Force.”

I think that this is a very cool piece of history, and I’d bet that the founders would be amazed at what the Dayton Hamvention has become, namely the pre-eminent amateur radio event in the world.

Operating Notes: 40-meter DX, two Ohio POTA activations

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Recently, there have been some complaints about propagation on the HF bands. Last night, however, propagation was pretty good on the 40-meter band. I managed to work four DX stations, including one LU (Argentina), one YT (Serbia), and two HAs. All of them were S6-S7 and very good copy.

The two stations from Hungary were both from the same town (Miskolc). I’m wondering if the first one called up the second and let him know that propagation was good to the U.S.

Finally got Ohio in the POTA log

Last year, on my way down to the Dayton Hamvention, I activated two parks: Van Buren State Park and Grand Lake St. Marys State Park. Unfortunately, those logs never got uploaded. As I was leaving the second park, my phone died. And, it wasn’t just that the battery needed recharging. It was completely dead. I lost both logs, and when I got to Dayton, I had to buy a new phone.

This time, I had much better luck. Van Buren State Park is right off the I-75 freeway. As soon as you get off the freeway, you’re in the town of Van Buren. Drive through town (about four or five blocks) and you come to the park. I set up in a shelter close to the entrance because there was a possibility of rain. Despite complaints about poor band conditions, I made 30 contacts in an hour, including a couple of DX contacts. I would have stayed longer, but that evening, I was meeting some people for dinner, so I packed up and headed to the second park.

Lighthouse next to a lake.
Even though it’s an inland lake, Grand Lake St. Mary’s is so big that has a lighthouse.

The second park I activated was Grand Lake St. Mary’s State Park. I like this park because, even though it’s an inland lake, it has a lighthouse (see above). So, I get both a park activation and a lighthouse activation.

Grand Lake St. Marys is a man-made lake that was constructed in the early 19th century as a reservoir for the Miami and Erie Canal, which connected the Ohio River with Lake Erie. At one time the lake was the world’s largest man-made lake.

The threat of rain was even more real here, so I found another shelter to set up in. That kept me nice and dry. Unfortunately, the shelter I decided on was very close to some homes near the lake. The problem with that was that it was very noisy there. I managed to make 15 contacts in about an hour, but I know I missed at least one because he was down in the noise. I would have been able to make that contact if I’d been at Van Buren State Park.

After I packed up, it was off to Dayton. This time, my phone didn’t flake out on me, and I made it to the hotel in plenty of time to get ready for dinner. Overall, it was a great way to kick off my Dayton 2025 trip.

Why aren’t electronic badges more of a thing in #hamradio?

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Electronic circuit board with LED screen and buttons.
DEF CON 32 electronic badge.

I attended DEF CON 32 a week or so ago, and like many “hacker” conferences, attendees got an electronic badge. This year’s badge was built around the new Raspberry PI microcontroller, the RP2350. It actually works like a GameBoy, and you can add games like you would a GameBoy. Here are a couple of videos that talk about the DEF CON 32 electronic badge:

Some of the “villages” or special interest groups, such as the Aerospace Village created their own badges.

At DEF CON, I attended a talk by a fellow who’s created an open-source design—both hardware and software—upon which you can build a badge for your event. He calls his badge OpenTaxus, and you can find the documentation here.

Since these things are so popular at hacker conferences, I wonder why they aren’t more popular at amateur radio events? Is it because hams are just too cheap to buy something like this? Or, maybe, it’s because hams are just not as “creative” as hackers.

At any rate, I’m thinking about coming up with some kind of electronic badge for the 2025 Dayton Hamvention. If any of you have ideas for the badge—or would perhaps be interested in working on the badge hardware or software—let me know. If we are going to do a badge, it would probably be a good idea to get started on it now.

Dayton 2024 had it all: Four Days in May

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On Thursday, May 16, I attended Four Days in May (FDIM), an event put on by the QRP Amateur Radio Club International (QRP ARCI). The first FDIM was held in 1996, and QRP ARCI has held it every year since, excluding the Covid years. This year, nearly 300 people attended the event.

Like the name implies, there are FDIM events on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but the main event is the series of talks on Thursday. These start at 8 am and run until 5 pm. This year, the talks included:

  • The Construction and Use of a WhoZat by Jack Purdum, W8TEE. Jack is a retired professor from Purdue University, a frequent speaker at FDIM, and the designer of many microcontroller-powered ham radio projects, including transceivers and antenna analyzers. This year, he talked about his latest design, the WhoZat. WhoZat is a portable, battery-powered device that allows an operator to type in a call sign prefix and obtain information about the country associated with the callsign. It will give you the country name, and the azimuthal bearing from your location to that country. One of the takeaways from this talk is that the WhoZat is powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico, and Jack encouraged everyone to consider the Pico for future projects because it has more computing power and more memory than most Arduinos.In addition to talking about the WhoZat, Jack was promoting his latest book, Digital Signal Processing and Sofware Defined Radio. It’s available on Amazon for $45.
  • Top 10 Junkbox Projects by Hans Summers, G0UPL. Hans is the genious(?), madman(?), entrepreneur(?) behind QRP Labs. In this talk, he extolled the virtues (as I have done) of a well-stocked junkbox. The project that resonated the most with me is the one-tube transmitter.The reason it resonates with me is that I’ve been threatening to build one for years myself. Hans actually did it, though. In fact, he made his first QSO with a transmitter he built from an ECL82 tube.At the end of his talk, Hans gave a little plug for his newest transceiver, the QMX+. The embedded SDR rig covers 160 – 6m, in a slightly bigger form factor than the QMX, for only $125. It’s incredible, really.
  • zBitx–A Portable Station for the CW Operator by Ashar Farhan, VU2ESE of HF Signals. In this talk, Ashar described his zBitx, a portable CW/FT8 SDR transceiver. This isn’t a radio that Ashar is selling (yet!), but it does look like a complete design. And, of course, that design is completely open source, something he ribbed one of the other presenters about.
    A small radio with a smart phone user interface.
    The zBitx is a very small, portable CW/FT8 radio that uses a smart phone for an enhanced user interface.

    This radio is powered by a Raspberry Pi, specifically the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. This module costs $15 and runs Linux. Ashar says, “If Arduino was a matchbox RC car, this Raspberry Pi is an Airbus A380, both in terms of size and speed. It can run WSJT X, fldigi, and full-stack SDR.” The radio also takes advantage of the WiFi capablity of the RPi. There’s an app that runs on a smart phone that acts as a front panel.

    At the end of his talk, instead of flogging a product, Ashar passed out a small PCB assembly called the sBitx Hat. Designed to plug into a Raspberry Pi, it includes an Si5351 clock generator and a 96 kbps, dual-channel audio codec. It looks it will be a fun thing to play with.

  • Adventures of a QRP Evangelist by Cliff Batson, N4CCB, proprietor of the QRP School YouTube channel. Cliff gave us a primer on QRP operation and on how to make YouTube videos. He encouraged us all to go out and make videos. I’m not so sure about this myself. It seems to me that there is already too many ham radio videos to watch.
  • Amplifying Your Adventures, Minimizing Your Power by noted YouTuber Tom Witherspoon, K4SWL. In his presentation, Tom concentrated on the personal and operating aspects of QRP, not the technical. The conclusion published in the proceedings does a good job of summarizing his talk. It reads, “Since my journey into ham radio began in 1997, I’ve encountered countless naysayers proclaiming, ‘That won’t work’ or ‘Life’s too short for QRP.’ These discouraging words often came from individuals who lacked firsthand experience in the field. Rather than accepting the pessimistic views, I’ve treated them as a checklist of challenges to overcome. my approach has been simple: get out there, experiment, and fully immerse myself in the moment. It’s through this hands-on exploration that I’ve discovered the true joy and potential of QRP operations.”
  • Designing the Elecraft KH1: From Vision to Reality by Wayne Burdick, N6KR. Wayne certainly needs no introduction. His talk concentrated on how he made some of the decisions he made in designing the Elecraft KH1 hand-held HF transceiver. It was a great talk that gave quite a bit of insight into the design process. Personally, I’m not sold on the KH1, but Elecraft can’t make them fast enough, so I guess that tells you how valuable my opinion is.
  • The Amazing Thermionic Valve by Greg Latta, AA8V. Greg is a professor emeritus of electrical engineering from Frostburg State University. He delved into some of the theory of how vacuum tubes work and some of the practical applications.
  • Stealth Operation from Hotel Rooms and Other Unlikely QTHs by Ross Ballantyne, VK1UN.

Unfortunately, Ross was unable to present, either in person or via Zoom. According to the paper in the proceedings, Ross was part of several peace-keeping missions to remote spots around the world. On these trips, he operated from many hotel rooms and gained quite a bit of experience doing so. For example, he writes that virtually all of his antennas are made from wirewrap wire, which he gets from Ali Express. To couple the wire antenna to the transmitter, he uses a Z-match tuner or a modified Z-match tuner called the FRI match ATU. It’s a shame that Ross wasn’t able to adress us in person, as he sounds like quite an interesting fellow.

A walk with VU2ESE

After the talks, I decided to take a walk and stretch my legs. Just as I got to the street, I ran into a friend of mine, Arun, W8ARU, and Ashar, VU2ESE. We decided to walk together, and ended up walking about a mile and a half or so.

Arun and Farhan have been friends for many years. In fact, Arun hired Ashar to work for a company that Arun owned when he lived in India. (Arun now lives in Ann Arbor, MI, which is how I got to know him.) Arun once told me the taught Farhan how to solder. I confirmed that story at Hamvention last year when Ashar visited the ARDC booth.

In addition to all his development activities, Farhan recently joined the board of directors of Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), the private foundation that I retired from last May. We had a great chat about the future of ARDC and amateur radio in general, among other topics. It will be interesting to see in which direction the new board members take ARDC.

Vendor Night

Thursday evening, FDIM holds Vendor Night. It’s a great deal for vendors. There’s no charge to participate as a vendor, and it’s a lot of fun. A couple of years ago when I did Vendor Night, I also shared a booth with the Dayton Makerspace on Friday and Saturday at Hamvention and ended up selling more books in 2 hours at the FDIM Vendor Night than I did in 2 days of Hamvention.

This year, I sold about $150 worth of books. What was even better was meeting everyone, including those who have used my books to get licensed or to upgrade. For example, Tom, K4SWL, came over and shared his story with me.

He said that one year his wife said that she would also get her ticket as an anniversary present. He gave her my study guide and ten days later, she had her license. How cool is that?

Kudos to QRP ARCI for another successful FDIM. If you’d like to get a copy of this year’s proceedings, you can contact them by emailing [email protected] or [email protected]. QRP ARCI also has some other goodies, if you’re interested, in their Toy Store.

Dayton 2024 had it all: Part 1

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I really had a blast at this year’s Dayton Hamvention. My 2024 Hamvention experience included:

  • Parks on the Air (POTA)
  • Four Days in May
  • New product introductions: QMX+, zBITx, Icom X60, Flex 8000
  • Forums
  • Kids
  • Food
  • Friends, lots of friends

Rather than try to write about it all in one big blog post, I’m going to split it up into a bunch of smaller posts. Here’s the first installment…

POTA, POTA

I’m retired now, so I can take as much time as I want for events like Hamvention. That being the case, my first decision was to not only go to Hamvention, but also Four Days in May (FDIM), put on by the QRP Amateur Radio Club International. The biggest part of FDIM is the all-day seminar held the Thursday before Hamvention. The talks begin at 8 am and run until 5 pm.

I only live about three and a half hours from Dayton, so in the past, I’ve driven down verrrry early Thursday morning, so that I could get there in time. My wife thinks I’m getting too old to do that, though, so I drove down on Wednesday. Since the drive is so short, however, I took advantage of the fact that I had a lot of time and activated two parks along the way: Van Buren State Park and Grand Lake St. Mary’s State Park. Both of these parks are not far from I-75, and I was kind of excited about doing this as it would be my first “rove” on my own.

I left my house at 9:30 am. It was raining as I left, and for most of the way to Van Buren State Park, which is just north of Lima, OH. When I got there, though, the rain had stopped, and I got set up quickly. While eating lunch, I made 18 contacts in a little over an hour.

Onward and southward

I packed up and headed to Grand Lake St. Mary’s State Park. On the way, it began raining again, but by the time I reached the state park, it had stopped and the sun was shining.

As the name implies, it’s quite a big lake for a man-made lake. In fact, according to Wikipedia, Grand Lake is the largest inland lake in Ohio, and at one time, was the world’s largest man-made lake. The lake was constructed in the early 19th century as a reservoir for the Miami and Erie Canal, which connected the Ohio River with Lake Erie. The canal system thrived for about thirty years in the mid-to-late 19th century before it was replaced by the railroads.

One of the attractions for me is that there is a lighthouse on the lake. That being the case, my first choice for an operating position was at the lighthouse. Unfortunately, the lighthouse is on private land, so I couldn’t operate from there. Instead, I chose a spot on the west side of the lake, from which I could see the small lighthouse. It was a very nice spot, and like the first park, I made 18 contacts in a little over an hour.

The adventure started after I packed up to go. While finishing up the activation, I noticed that battery in my phone was draining quicker than usual, but I still thought that I had enough battery power to get to Dayton. I started out on the route that Google Maps gave me, but I only got about ten miles, before the phone went completely dead. I plugged it into the car’s USB port, but it just didn’t want to charge up. I kept driving going first south, then east, then south again, reasoning that I’d eventually hit I-75.

That strategy worked quite well, and I evenutally ended up in Fort Loramie, OH. I stopped for a bite to eat, hoping that I could charge up my phone there, but the battery was completely dead. It wouldn’t take a charge at all. I lost that POTA logs and all of the photos I had on the phone.

After eating, I headed south on I-75, hoping that once I got to Dayton, I could figure out how to get to the hotel in Fairborn. That was wishful thinking, of course. After getting off the freeway, I asked for direction several times, but even so, I wandered around northeast and nothwest Dayton for at least an hour before I got to where I was going.

Fortunately, the hotel was close to several stores that sold Tracfones, which is the cell phone service that I use. I was able to purchase a new Samsung for $50, and after some wrangling with their tech support was able to get my phone number assigned to it. I was back in business. At that point, it was time to hit the sack.

Stay tuned for more of my Hamvention 2024 adventure. Tomorrow, I’ll be blogging about the Four Days in May talks and Vendor Night.

Amateur radio videos: ARDC community meeting, Hamvention award winners, send texts over VHF/UHF

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ARDC Community Meeting 2024-02-24

Here’s the latest update from ARDC on their activities.

Hamvention 2024 award winners

The winners this year include:

  • Special Achievement Award: Anthony Luscre, K8ZT
  • Technical Achievement: Ward Silver, N0AX
  • Club of the Year: Young Ladies Radio League
  • Amateur of the Year: Edward Engleman, KG8CX

Text over radio with Rattlegram

This might be something interesting to try on a repeater that’s not very active.

Hamvention 2023 was a blast again (Part 1)

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Writing about an event like Hamvention is a daunting task, which is why I put off doing it. What I’ve decided to do is to cover it in several post instead of one big post. Here goes…

Driving to Dayton

I’m really fortunate in that it takes less than three and a half hours for me to drive to Dayton. I have even left very early in the morning some years to avoid having to pay for an extra night in a hotel room.

This year’s drive was very pleasant. The weather was great (as it would be for the entire Hamvention), and there was very little construction along the way to delay me. I left about 9:00 am and arrived at the Greene County Expo Center about 12:30 pm.

Along the way, I listened to podcasts. My listening habits are quite eclectic. The podcasts that I had downloaded for the trip included:

By the way, I use the AntennaPod podcast app on my Android tablet to manage my podcast subscriptions. It’s a great open source app. I’ve even donated to the developers to encourage them to continue developing and improving the app.

Poor band conditions :(

In recent years, I’ve had either an exhibitor badge or a forum presenter badge, which gives me access to the fairgrounds before the general public. I really enjoy wandering around the fairgrounds and watching Hamvention take shape. One of the stops I always make is the Linux in the Ham Shack booth to kibitz with Russ K5TUX, Sheryl W5MOO, and Bill NE4RD.

After I’d harassed them enough, I decided to set up my KX-3 out in the flea market and try my luck on the bands. There’s a great spot underneath a couple of trees there. Last year, I had great success operating from that spot. This year, not so much. The bands were just terrible, and I gave  up after scratching out just two contacts.

After wandering around a bit more, I decided to head over to the hotel, check in, and have some dinner. I also caught a short nap before heading over to the QRP-ARCI Four Days in May Vendor Night.

Two new radios at Vendor Night

QRP Labs’ QMX digital transceiver

There were two radios that people seemed to be excited about there. The first was QRP Labs QMX 5-band digital transceiver. The QMX features include:

  • 80-meter, 60-meter, 40-meter, 30-meter, and 20-meter bands
  • 5W output
  • embedded SDR receiver,
  • 24-bit 48 ksps USB sound card
  • CAT control
  • synthesized VFO with TCXO reference

The QMX can only run CW and single-tone FSK modes currently,  including everything in WSJT-X, JS8Call, some fldigi modes e.g. RTTY, Olivia and more. On CW, the QMX has click-reducing RF envelope shaping. It is not suitable for phase shift keyed modes such as PSK31 or modes involving multiple concurrent tones such as WinLink.

The price is only $95! It’s kind of amazing that QRP Labs can offer these kits for that price.

The second radio was the sBitx v2 from HF Signals, home of the μBitx. This radio costs $500, but it is completely assembled and outputs 40 W. Other features include:

  • Modes: FT8, SSB, CW, RTTY, PSK31 and others out of the box (no computer required)
  • Compact 10″x 6″x 2″ size, slips into the backpack
  • Raspberry Pi inside, all preconfigured software & source code on-board
  • Hackable, tinkerable, scriptable
  • Integrates logging, logbook, spotting in one compact box
  • High Performance Hybrid SDR with passive front-end
  • Brick wall crystal filter 8 crystals
  • Fully electronic T/R and band switching
  • Open source, documented
  • Can be powered from an external 11.1v LiPo batteries for field ops

This looks like it could be a fun radio to play with. I like the 40W output capability and the open source software. I may have to buy one of each. :)

That was about all I could handle for one day. After vendor night, it was back to the hotel to crash and get ready for Friday at Dayton.

More tips on how to have the best Hamvention ever

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About a week ago, I blogged about how it might be a good idea to get in shape for Hamvention. Well, the fellow who gave me that idea—Jay, WB8TKL—has come up with some more good ideas about how to get the most out of your Hamvention experience.

Someone told me that Hamvention was like Mecca and you MUST go at least once in your lifetime. I got mixed up and thought they said that you can only MISS Hamvention ONCE in your lifetime :) I’ve been to all of them since 1977 and have a few tips on how you can make the most out of attending Hamvention.

  • WALK! Weeks in advance you should get out and walk a mile or two or
    three every day to beef yourself up for all the walking you’ll be
    doing. Get used to being on your feet for several hours.
  • Over the weeks leading up to Hamvention, break larger bills into $10, $5, and $1 dollar bills. Don’t make the sellers burn through all their small bills.
  • Make a wish list. List the items you need for ongoing projects, and any future projects you hope to do over the next year.
    • Write down the specifications/details of any products you want.
    • Make an estimate of how many you’ll need and how much they’ll cost. Don’t forget to include spares!
  •  Stock up on supplies. I used to hit Mendelson’s first thing Friday
    morning, with my folding hand cart. I’d purchase 40 or 50 POUNDS of
    hardware of all sizes ($1.25 per pound). Then haul that heavy load
    back to my car well before I’d burn out walking all of Hamvention.
    This assured a life-long supply of hardware in my workshop. Did the
    same with rolls of resistors and capacitors, and filled my parts bin
    drawers back home.
  • Write down the phone numbers, flea market space numbers, motel name and room numbers, of any friends you hope to hook up with.
  • Put together a list of eateries near your motel that you’d like to try. Include their reservation phone number and address. Maybe make a plan for which place to eat on which night, and share that with your friends and buddies you would like to spend more time with.
  • Make a list of any evening events or dinners you’d like to attend.
  • Make a list of seminars you plan to attend. Note the day, time, and room number. This will help to keep you on schedule and not miss an important seminar you wanted to see.
  • Carry a “goodie bag” to collect all your small items and even some big ones. Picture one of those heavy cloth bags newspaper boys used to use on their routes. Sometimes I even carry smaller bags inside my Goodie Bag, just in case!
  • Carry a DMM and a multitool. Sometimes making a resistance check or popping the cover off a case, will confirm if that “deal” is a good one, or a boat anchor.
  • Be prepared for intense sunshine, rain, and even sleet! Carry a hat and a plastic rain poncho. If you don’t use the poncho to cover yourself from rain, you may be glad you have it to cover that $1000 radio you just bought.
  • Keep track of your purchases. Log every purchase on a small pad or on your wish list. Hamvention is long and tiring and your memory will evade you when trying to figure out where that last $300 went that you can’t account for.
  • Don’t keep all your cash in one pocket or wallet. Place your money in multiple pockets just in case you drop or misplace it!!! Use money clips if you have them. I account for all my cash-on-hand each day before I start out, and reconcile my funds back at the motel in the evening.

By having a plan and a shopping list you are likely to have a much better experience at Hamvention :)

—Jay, WB8TKL

Amateur radio in the news: Field Day, Hamvention celebrates 70th year, Mills on the Air

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Ham Radio Operators On the Air for Nationwide ARRL Field Day Event

Ham radio operators from the Portage County Amateur Radio Service will be in Freedom Township  participating in a national amateur radio exercise for a full 24 hours  from 2:00 pm on Saturday until 2:00 pm on Sunday, (June 25 – 26) at the Freedom Township Community Park (corner of State Route 700 and Streeter Road ). The event is Field Day, an annual amateur radio activity organized since 1933 by ARRL, the national association for amateur radio in the United States.

…

Hams from across North America participate in Field Day by establishing temporary ham radio stations in public locations to demonstrate their skill and service. Their use of radio signals, which reach beyond borders, bring people together while providing essential communication in the service of communities. Field Day highlights ham radio’s ability to work reliably under any conditions from almost any location and create an independent, wireless communications network.

…read more

Dayton’s amateur radio ‘Hamvention’ returns for 70th anniversary

XENIA, OH — Following a two-year hiatus as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dayton Hamvention returned to celebrate 70 years of what is now considered the largest amateur radio convention in the world, according to organizers.

“Amateur radio is a very interesting hobby of service that people all over the world communicate with,” said Michael Kalter, spokesperson for the Dayton Hamvention.

…read more

Amateur radio enthusiasts mill about at John O’Groats

The ham radio enthusiasts gather outside the John O'Groats Mill.
The ham radio enthusiasts gather outside the John O’Groats Mill.

Members of the Caithness Amateur Radio Society (CARS) took part in a contact event at the weekend in the British mainland’s most northerly mill at John O’Groats.

Plans to transform John O’Groats Mill into a visitor attraction and community hub had a further boost with the visit by CARS members to use the historic building for contacting other ham radio enthusiasts.

Nigel Mansfield, CARS club secretary, said: “Called Mills on the Air, clubs all over the UK and Europe, operating from all types of mills, tried to raise as many contacts as possible through the medium of amateur radio.

…read more

Day 1 at Hamvention 2022

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Day 1 at the 2022 Dayton (Xenia) Hamvention is winding down, and I just have to blog about it. It’s been so much fun that even if I had to go home today, I’d say that the trip was worth it.

Now, you might be asking, “Doesn’t Hamvention start on Friday?” Yes, it does, but I’m here representing ARDC, so I have an exhibitor badge. That let me get in today. Exhibitor hours on Thursday are from 8 am to 8 pm.

I got there a little after 8 am and went to get my exhibitor badge. That went smoothly enough, and be 8:30 am, I carted the ARDC swag over to our booth (Booth 1302, by the way). At this early hour, it doesn’t look like Hamvention yet. Below is a photo I took at around 9 am showing how empty it was. The Yaesu folks were hard at it, but it looks like the rest of the vendors slept in.

Sorry for this photo being a little blurry. I should have checked it and taken another.

For the next hour and a half or so, I just hung out and schmoozed with other hams that I know, including Jim K8JK and George K9TRV. I was waiting for the weather to clear up a little. I brought my KX3 with me and wanted to do a little operating, but it was foggy and damp, and even though it was forecast to clear up, it was looking like rain to me.

About 10:45 am,, the sun broke through for a bit, so I decided to give it a go. I found the tallest tree in the flea market to throw my 66-ft. doublet up into and set up the rig on one folding chair while I sat on the other.

Yours truly working CW in the Hamvention flea market.

40 meters was in great shape, and over the course of a couple hours, I made about a dozen contacts, including some SSB contacts with a couple of multiple-operator POTA stations, whose operators were on their way to Xenia. One notable contact was a 30-minute QSO with a station in Columbus. We were both 599. Columbus is about 60 miles from Xenia, so I guess it was some weird short skip.

Just before I decided to pack it in, a passerby suggested that I try 10 meters. I heard a couple of stations on 10, including one DX station whose call I never got, but none of them could hear me. I packed up after a couple of hours, and just in time, too. As I was coiling up my antenna, the folks whose flea market space I was using drove up.

After a bit of lunch, I did a quick turn around the flea market. Not many were set up yet, so I didn’t see anything really exotic. After the flea market, I went schmoozing again. My first stop was the Mississippi Valley Amateur Radio Association’s emergency communications bus. This club got a grant from ARDC, and they done a great job outfitting the bus with both HF and VHF/UHF gear.

My final stop before heading off to dinner was with Russ K5TUX, Cheryl W5MOO, and Bill NE4RD at the Linux in the Ham Shack booth. These people were hard at work setting up their booth, so I didn’t bother them for too long, but I wanted to touch base with them, as there so graciously had ARDC on their podcast.

After that, it was off to dinner with Jeff, KE9V. Jeff is also a ham radio blogger (although I can’t seem to find his blog just now), and we’ve known each other for quite a while. After dinner, Jeff Tweeted, “Just had dinner with @kb6nu — we solved a lot of problems but so much laughter that it couldn’t be recorded and taken seriously. Thanks Dan, enjoyed that a lot!” Well, Jeff, I enjoyed it a lot, too, especially because you paid! Next year, dinner’s on me.

Now, it’s off to bed to get ready for tomorrow’s adventures.