AM'ers at Dayton

[bisseks@mac.com]

Having newly returned to AM after a 50 year affair with other modes, it would be nice to see some from this hearty group at Dayton. I read about pizza parties, but is there a place at the convention y'all hang out.. like in a corner somewhere at a magic hour? Anyway just thinking out loud. 

Thanks for your support of AM

Best wishes,

Barry
K6ZA

[W9GT]

Look for the big DX-60 Net banner.  Jeff, KA9TOC always has a big set-up with several spaces and a lot of boatanchor gear.  His place tends to be a gathering point for AMers.  The AM forum has been a good gathering for several years but none held last year or planned for this year from what I hear.  Also several AMers will have flea market spaces and be selling AM goodies.  Some folks will list their space numbers on this site and you can make note of them.  Dayton has been a good place to meet fellow AMers every year, but not too easy, I suppose, if you don't know what they look like or recognize calls on hats. 

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Pete, WA2CWA]

SEE THIS DAYTON THREAD:
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=23914.0

Never heard of a magic hour at Dayton but I have heard the cry and yell of "I got it first". And then there's the infamous cry of  "my scooter wheel is stuck in a hole!"

[k4kyv]

Haven't heard what happened with the AM forum this year.  Dale, KW1I has been doing most of the work to make it happen for the past few years.  Last year it was supposedly a goof-up on the part of the hamfest committee that caused it to be  cancelled; by the time the error was discovered, all the forum rooms were already taken by others.

Haven't heard anything from Dale this year.  Maybe he just thought it was too thankless a job to continue.

But others might have been willing to make it happen if Dale didn't want to do it any more.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I posted a link to the forums several weeks ago. AM wasn't on it. You can also go up to the Hamvention site read the list of all the forums.

[K5UJ]

I'll look for the DX60 net table.  I visited there some last year. 

Let's see....is there any kind of Collins forum this year?   Last year they had that Collins wizard (forget his name but the die-hard Collins collectors know him) who spent the hour talking about an S Line rig.   If they have one this year I hope it has to do with the A line.

ER Ray told me he won't make it this year but I don't know if that means no ER booth or ER with someone else--I assume ER won't be there.

There's the pizza thing on Saturday night.  Marion's Pizza, somewhere a few miles south of Hara Arena; I don't have the QTH but there's another thread in this forum about it.

Speaking for myself, I will be focused on the flea market on Friday morning and if anyone says hello and I don't linger don't take it personally--at that point I'll be in a hurry to get parts before they get taken by the little eBay sharks who swarm all over with their family radio service HTs.

Rob

[Pete, WA2CWA]

The only time I can remember ER has been at the convention was with the previous owner back in the 90's. There's a Collins forum and a Drake forum and several ARRL forums. The theme of this year's Hamvention is "Amateur Radio Clubs Worldwide: The Lifeline".

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I talked to Dale briefly at NEARFest. He will be at Dayton but I forgot to ask about the forum.

Haven't heard what happened with the AM forum this year.  Dale, KW1I has been doing most of the work to make it happen for the past few years.  Last year it was supposedly a goof-up on the part of the hamfest committee that caused it to be  cancelled; by the time the error was discovered, all the forum rooms were already taken by others.

Haven't heard anything from Dale this year.  Maybe he just thought it was too thankless a job to continue.

But others might have been willing to make it happen if Dale didn't want to do it any more.

[K5UJ]

I thought ER was there last year.  I must have confused them with something else.

Separately I learned the Collins forum is going to be about another S-Line box  so I'll be skipping that.

[wb2fof]

WB2FOF and crew will be at #3352. Will be on 3885AM and 51.0WFM . Usually a pretty good spot to find a bunch of the old buzzard AM types ! Special guests doing autograph signing will be KA8WTK and Brian W8KHZ !

[w3jn]

O-boy.  Well thanks for warning everyone, Bob, you indeed did the ham community a public service!

Seriously the FOF usually has some of the coolest stuff at the hamfest...  although ya never know, maybe this year he'll be hawking knit trains and beanie babies.

[W3GMS]

I talked to Dale at Nearfest and I am pretty sure he said no AM forum this year.  I have not been to Dayton in many years, but always used to enjoy the AM forum that Dale put together.  After 20 years of Dayton I needed a break, plus it was when Dayton was at its peak attendance wise and working the logistic within the Hara Arena for my business space got to be tuff. 

Regards,
Joe, W3GMS 

[K5UJ]

When I first got back on the air after QRT for 18 years in 2000 I went to Dayton.  some group, I think VJB was involved with this, had set up a real boatanchor AM station in the flea market.  I was not that interested at the time because I had no gear at all and was more intent on getting an antenna put up and some kind of rig on the air but I remember a D104, big speaker, NC300 or 303 rx, and the big audio signal on 75 meters with selective fading and everything and I thought it was pretty cool.  It made an impression I remember 10 years later. 

[KB2WIG]

SEE THIS DAYTON THREAD:
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=23914.0

Never heard of a magic hour at Dayton but I have heard the cry and yell of "I got it first". And then there's the infamous cry of  "my scooter wheel is stuck in a hole!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csuZHyW-iGI

[k4kyv]

I would  rate the weather prospects about 3.5 out of 5.  It might rain Friday, but Saturday promises to be a fairly good day. I'd bring a sweater and jacket both days.

Friday:

http://www.accuweather.com/en-gb/NAM/US/OH/Dayton/Details4.aspx

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxdetail/USOH0245?dayNum=3


Saturday:

http://www.accuweather.com/en-gb/NAM/US/OH/Dayton/Details5.aspx

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxdetail/USOH0245?dayNum=4

[Sam KS2AM]

If you're not going to Dayton you may want to give a listen for some pedestrian-mobile guys who will be walking around the Hara parking lot...

HFpack Dayton Portable Pedestrian Mobile Net
"Huge Net of HF Portable Ops" - 1:00pm Saturday May 15 (1700 UTC) -18157.5 kHz USB --- Net Control: Mark KI0PF/PM


Don't think you'll hear anyone ?  Check this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxp_Nsa54_Q



Sam /  KS2AM

[K5UJ]

I would  rate the weather prospects about 3.5 out of 5.  It might rain Friday, but Saturday promises to be a fairly good day. I'd bring a sweater and jacket both days.

yeah but if it is like last year, if you miss Friday, there's pretty much no point in going.   the flea market on Saturday was about as good as your average regional fest.  Everything worth getting was gone after the first few hours on Friday.

[k4kyv]

It's always been that way. I was disappointed when they started opening the fest on Friday.  It used to be Saturday only, then they made it a Sat-Sun affair.  But later on they started opening it at noon Friday, and finally, early Friday morning.  That leaves a lot of people out, people who can't get away from work Friday, but by Saturday morning everything has been picked over.

For me, Friday is the flea market day and Saturday is the day to socialise and hang out.  An exception is when it pours down all day Friday but the wx turns nice on Saturday.

The worse thing they did was to start dicking around with the dates.  For many years, it was always the 3rd weekend of April. It rarely rained that weekend.  I recall a brochure from the mid 70's in which they touted that it had been rained out only twice in 22 years.  Then some genius decided to move it one week later, to the 4th weekend of April.  For about 7 or 8 years in a row, it poured down at least one of the days if not the whole weekend .  I recall several times while it was raining cats and dogs, asking locals what the wx was like the previous weekend and inevitably they said the wx had been fine, and that would have been a good weekend for the hamfest.

On the original date, it was sometimes freezing cold.  I remember one year it spit snow.  Other years it was in the high 80's and sunny, t-shirt and sunscreen weather, but it rarely rained.  Evidently the weather pattern for that part of the  country is substantially different in the space of only one week, and there is a little window for dry conditions on just that weekend. Finally, they moved the hamfest to mid-May to get away from the rain, but it still gets rained out more than it did on the old date.

I suspect that is one of the factors that made a hamfest in a hum-drum city like Dayton, OH become a world renown event was the fact that it took place in April but didn't get rained out.  Then they started tampering with the date.

Someone told me that the reason for the first date change was that a local university wanted to have its prom in the Convention Centre that weekend, which is the same place they have the Saturday evening hamfest banquet. Considering the amount of money the hamvention brings into the city every year, it's incredible that they would have moved the hamfest to accommodate a prom. Someone didn't do their homework and check out the weather patterns before making the decision to change dates.

[K5UJ]

who the heck wants to go to some hamvention banquet anyway.  yikes, the notion of what's on the menu for hundreds of hams in one of those rubber chicken banquet halls is scary.   It has never even occurred to me in all these years to want to go to that thing.  ditto for the forums.  the one forum I can think of that has the potential to be interesting is going to be on the S Line, which is noteworthy only for being one of the notorious milestones marking the end of the Golden Age of AM.  It's always things like a few guys back from some dxpedition talking about it, or some way of getting a few more QSOs in a contest.  OTOH, some guys could use a forum on how to ragchew but we'll all be in our graves before that happens. 

I wonder if they have ever considered moving it to June or July.  It is not like Dayton is in southern Alabama where we'd all die from heat and humidity.

[k4kyv]

I sometimes attend the FCC forum and of course the AM Forum before that fizzled. Occasionally there will be an interesting technical topic of discussion. Most of the forums turn out to be a waste of good fleamarket time, and the questions from the audience tend to resemble postings on QRZ.com.

[W9GT]

I have been going to Dayton for over 40 years.  My interests have changed over time and I have enjoyed many aspects of the hobby.  For some groups, the Hamvention is truly a convention.  It is an opportunity for them the gather on an annual basis and, perhaps also serves as a reunion of like-minded individuals.

Over several years the big attraction was FM and VHF/UHF repeaters.  The "in" thing to do was gather at the "FM Bash" on Friday night which was held at the old Holiday Inn on the East side of Dayton.  That activity became so big that it eventually moved downtown to the Convention Center and included bands for entertainment and was a huge party.  It seems that it fell apart when the repeater thing became old hat and many people moved on to other interests.

I used to be very active with DXing and yes...contesting.   The other big attraction was attending all of the parties and "hospitality suites" at Stouffers Hotel downtown.  We would go from room to room ..meeting everyone and partying...it was a blast.  Lots of fun and met many DXers from all over the world.

It would be really fun if the AM crew could have more gatherings, perhaps similar to those held in the past for other specialty groups.  Unfortunately, the pizza gathering has been held on Saturday night when many of us have already gone home.  Several of us have gathered informally for dinner on Friday night, however, and we have had a great time.

Ham radio has certainly evolved over the years....as has the Dayton Hamvention.  It is still, however a highlight of the year for many of us.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[w3jn]

The Hamvention may have evolved.... but Hara Arena continues its slide into seedy decay 

[W9GT]

The Hamvention may have evolved.... but Hara Arena continues its slide into seedy decay 

Absolutely agree with that!  I wish they could find a new venue.  The first year I went there, many of the activities were at the old Biltmore Hotel in downtown Dayton.  As it grew, it moved entirely to Hara Arena.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[W9GT]

Dayton WX forecast changes by the hour, but looks now like good outlook.  Chance of t-storm tomorrow morning, but clear and warm after that.  Keep your fingers crossed, and bring the umbrella just in case.

73,  Jack, W9GT