Dayton wrap-up

I had another good time at the Hamvention. The weather was perfect for a ham convention: cool and dry.

My schedule was so full that I had little time to update this blog while I was there. Also, the slow intermittent Internet connection at my hotel did not help matters.

On Friday, I attended an informal meeting of ham radio Mac users in the pub at the Hamvention site. About 15 folks showed up and it was great to connect the faces with the names and call signs of the Mac users I have known for years.

Friday night, I attended the TAPR-AMSAT dinner. In past years, TAPR and AMSAT had competing dinners, but this year, they put their heads and dinners together and tripled attendance. The dinner was held at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson.

The food was great and after short talks from the leaders of TAPR, AMSAT, and the Hamvention, we had the run of the place for two hours. The museum is huge and houses huge planes, like a B-52, inside its hangars. I took a lot of photos and as soon as I get them all sorted out, I will post them on the Internet for you to view.

On Saturday, the forum (APRS) that I moderated was successful. We had a full house, standing-room-only, crowd. I estimate that there were over 300 in attendance. (I have a photo of the crowd and will make a better estimate later when I can actually count heads.) All the speakers were interesting and I did not see many people leave in the middle of the forum like I have seen at other forums, so that is a good sign that people were enjoying the show.

Software Defined Radio (SDR) received a lot of attention the Hamvention this year with lots of talks and new equipment related to SDR. I worked at TAPR's booth Friday and Saturday and could not help notice all the interest in TAPR's SDR offerings.

Throughout the Hamvention, I met old friends and acquaintances, some for the first time in person. That is a big attraction for me to go to the Hamvention.