2011 Dayton Hamvention

Posted on May 23, 2011 by jeff

Hey all, just got back in from the 2011 Dayton Hamvention. This year was an absolute blast and I would say attendance was much higher this year.

For our 2nd excursion to Dayton, we left on Wednesday morning to make the early Thursday morning start to Contest University (CTU) coordinated by K3LR. If you have never been, I highly recommend attending CTU. Much information is to be had as well as networking with fellow contesters but here and abroad. The material was fairly technical, although it applied directly to my operating methods and will hopefully help me work towards optimizing my time contesting. For the price ($50~$90) it was well worth the experience. More information including webinars are on their site http://www.contestuniversity.com/

Since Dave (NB3R) scored us Flea Market vendor spaces, we had to make the 7:30AM cutoff to get in the area to park. All three days consisted of 5AM wake-up calls, which I seemed to have no problem doing at Dayton.

More updates and photos to come later tonight.

73
–jeff
N3QO

Mar 28

Timonium hamfest 2011 and antenna work

Posted on March 28, 2011 by jeff

Another Timonium hamfest has come and gone.
Buyer turnout seemed pretty good, vendor turnout was slightly thinner than last year, although there seems to have been more tailgating than years past. Most likely due to better weather. I didn’t see too many capital expenses being made although I heard someone talking on the local repeater net saying he sold an entire silent key’s vintage Collins station. Laurie got a chance to use her new HT, which I was sure she really enjoyed keeping up with everyone. No large purchases this year, simple odds and ends and new antennas for our HT’s, but we got a chance to meet up with the 1900 guys from as far out as Pittsburgh and South NJ. Overall another successful hamfest! Can’t wait till next year![simage=464,576,n,center,][simage=465,576,n,center,]

The following day, Laurie and I made some adjustments to our 2 meter stack by adding a tilt-over base which allowed me to change the polarity on the cubical quad. Now I can get into N2KEJ’s repeater in South Jersey.[simage=463,576,n,center,][simage=462,576,n,center,]

Mar 22

Website updates and Hamfestage

Posted on March 22, 2011 by jeff

I recently decided to migrate all the photo content from the website from Yahoo’s Flickr to Google’s Picasa. Most of the content has been updated with some 2009 posts remaining.

Throughout the migration, I was able to see how the station has changed over the course of the last 2 years and where it’s going in the near future. More changes are coming!

It’s a new year, even though we’re 3 months in and Hamfest season has begun. This last weekend as I mentioned in my 160m mobile post, was the 2011 Cherryville hamfest. Public turnout was good, although vendor turnout was a little thin. I made a few purchases primarily from Kathy at Sauder Electronics and found an older Daiwa SWR / wattmeter to replace the MFJ that was toasted late last year.

The Timonium hamfest is just around the corner, this weekend. Timonium is a major show that I highly recommend visiting. The major retail vendors are usually there and weather permitting has an excellent outdoor tailgating section and a large inside flea market area. More hamfest posts to come.