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KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Day 1 at Hamvention 2022

Posted: 19 May 2022 08:33 PM PDT https://www.kb6nu.com/day-1-at-hamvention-2022/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email


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

Now, you might be asking, Doesnt Hamvention start on Friday? Yes, it does,
but Im 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 doesnt 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 didnt see anything really exotic. After the flea
market, I went schmoozing again. My first stop was the Mississippi Valley Amateur Radio Associations 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 didnt 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 cant seem to find his blog just now), and weve 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, dinners on me.

Now, its off to bed to get ready for tomorrows adventures.

The post Day 1 at Hamvention 2022 appeared first on KB6NUs Ham Radio Blog.

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