Hamvention

amateur radio buff writes "The Hamvention is coming up on May 16 - 18, for all you amateur radio people out there. This is the worlds biggest Ham fest held in Dayton, Ohio. With over 2500+ space outdoor vendor, and 500 inside exhibit spaces, find any amateur radio and electronic items there. Also the The 11th Annual Dayton Contest Dinner is held this year too! Dont miss it!"

Comments

Oh, simpler times...

[MrPerfekt]

My dad took me to the good ol' hamvention every year for about 8 years. I went since I was 7 or so. Good times. I remember when it was held in the middle of April and you froze your butt off at your table space trying to sell your old nintendo games. Not that gradually nudging it into May helped that much with the weather.

In any case, this is hardly new so if you're just learning about this for the first time, where have you been?

But seriously, my experience is that this event as with most ham radio things has been dwindling over the years. Anyone else feel that way?

It's a shame too because the community spirit of the ham radio operators rivals that of the early days of the Internet. But the Internet has lost its spark (or at least it's friendliness) far faster than amatuer radio.

But at least we have the memories.

Re:Oh, simpler times...

[Chuck Milam]

...some blame "the internet" and others say that it's "young people" who have no interest anymore in technical hobbies.

I blame the Internet and cable TV. No kidding. I was headed to a Linux Business Expo in the Twin Cities a couple years ago with some of my close (and very interested in technical hobbies) friends. We drove my car, and I was tuning around the HF bands as we made our way across town in the morning hours. The guys were interested for all of about 2 minutes. They were extremely disappointed that I couldn't just dial up whatever country they wanted. No kidding. It was like they expected me to dial in the [Japan|Germany|Mexico|France] channel, and have a open direct line to the country immediately.

Once I explained that HF SSB mobile was more "art" in the sense that you had to bascially take what was on depending on the time of day, band conditions, whether someone was actually on, etc., they lost all interest.

All too used to punching in a channel or a web address and having content delivered immediately, I guess.

--Chuck, KF9FR

Re:available bandwidth?

[N3Bruce]

The VHF and UHF amateur bands can get a little crowded with all of those HTs walking around, plus the communications by the event organizers. There is more room on UHF (420-450 Mhz) than on VHF (144-148 Mhz). Also add in all the traffic for cell phones and demonstrations of different modes and it is sometimes hard to find a quiet frequency, based on my observations at the Timmonium, Maryland hamfest. Patience is sometimes needed, but there is usually enough bandwidth that a frequency opens up. Usually groups of hams will work on a pre-agreed frequency, and there are only so many simplex channels and repeaters within HT range to go around, so patience and courtesy goes a long way. Perhaps a few experiments with trunking on the amateur bands could extend the limited bandwidth, but since large hamfests are local and infrequent events, there seems fairly little incentive to push the technology, and get the rules changed to allow it.