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I had a great time with Eric W4MC at Hamvention.? We split our time between wandering the boneyard and sitting in the tents.? Didn’t bring all that much to sell, but sold almost everything that I brought.? Eric sold one toy and bought another one to replace it, but that’s his story to tell.? I got a new Hygain DCU rotor controller so I can computer control the rotor for the 6m yagi soon.? I also bought the yaesu azi-eli rotor and I’m determined to figure out satellite operation.? That will be my next new ham radio adventure.

The weather was near perfect!? Enough so that I had to pause from time to time and make sure it wasn’t a dream.? Sunny, clear skies, and temps in the mid 70s and low humidity (like outdoor air conditioning) for the drive up on Wednesday.? Same thing Thursday and Friday.? Between midnight and 8 am got a bit of rain, but not enough to make the boneyard muddy.? By 9am the sun was shining, and by 1100 or so the temps were back into the 70s, low humidity, and just beautiful.? Best weather I’ve seen for the Hamvention weekend in maybe 30 treks.? Maybe the weather put folks in a good mood, because we had lots of great conversations with folks passing by.

I didn’t run into very many Atlanta area folks.? Tim WK4U visited a couple times.? Also saw Brian W3CP several times (if I could work half of the countries I see him working on 6m FT8, I’d have DXCC on that band too).? Other than a few guys in GA Tech T-shirts that caused Eric to mutter GO DAWGS, that was about it for the GA crowd.? I’m sure others must have been there, but I missed them.? (And if I’m forgetting somebody who did stop by, forgive my old man CRS) ?

The last couple of years I didn’t spend a lot of time wandering the boneyard, but this year I did, and it seemed a bit different that in the past.? Way more ham stuff and (at least IMHO) way less motorola/GE stuff.? I liked that.? Seemed to be the year for CW keys in the boneyard-lots available.? (BTW, I’m up to 205 confirmed on CW now, and have yet to plug a key into the radio).? Only a handful of antennas for sale in the boneyard—maybe a dozen in the whole boneyard.? Seems like there used to be a lot more.? I was asked to look for some hardline, but this year the miles and miles of any size, any length hardline weren’t there.? Lot’s of short lengths of ?” hardline, no long pieces. So maybe less big bulky low-price stuff, but as I said, there were radios/mics/keys/rotors/accessories in abundance.? Seemed odd to me, but maybe 20% of the boneyard spots that were sold were never occupied.? Not sure what’s up with that.? Can’t blame the weather.??

I wish I could tell you about all the wonderful new things I saw in the inside exhibits, but to be honest, I didn’t notice a lot of new things.? Kenwood had a promise of a new HT to replace the TH-D74 (it will be the TH-D75), maybe ready next year.? It’s essentially the same radio redesigned around chips and parts they can actually get.? Same GPS/APRS/D-star functions as the D74.? But it looks like maybe, just maybe, they aren’t leaving the ham market after all.? I talked to Phil Parton about why Kenwood pulled out of Australia (which seemed to many like the beginning of the end for Kenwood ham radio).? He said they could really justify a service center and Kenwood support staff for a country/continent with less than 25000 hams total (VK and ZL combined), so they trimmed their organization.? North America, with 30 or 40 times as many hams shouldn’t see any change.? Per Phil, sales of the 590, 890, and 990 are still fairly strong—and I find it a bit surprising that the TS-590 at around $1500 is selling at all, when the IC-7300 can be had for a bit over $1000.? Your mileage may vary.?

In the ICOM booth I really only was looking at the 9700—maybe on next year’s list.? But I didn’t see anything else that was new since last Hamvention.? Might have missed something new in the pile of HTs and mobile rigs they had.? About the only thing I looked at carefully in the Yaesu booth was the G-5500 rotor, but didn’t notice anything new.? Walked quickly through Elecraft and Flex displays, and didn’t see anything new.? Even West Mountain Radio had nothing new, and the only thing they mentioned coming soon was a 10 position network-controlled DC power strip (power poles) with the ability to turn on/off each circuit remotely.? Availability TBD.

The big dealers were there—HRO, Gigaparts, DXEngineering, R&L.? DX Engineering had a deal of $50 off a “qualifying purchase” (not sure what qualifies, but the Yaesu rotor did).? Other than that, as far as I could tell you could have ordered anything off the internet for the same price.? Not much in the way of special hamvention discounts where you had to be there to get it.? While they had some stock there (Eric brought his toy home with him), I’d guess that much (or most) of the sales were to be shipped direct from the store to your house.? Both of mine were.

I had great plans to attend a couple of the forums, but I was having too much fun doing other stuff so I skipped them.? I thought the ARRL forum might be interesting as one topic was to be the proposed dues increase.? Seems like 4 or 5 years ago they raised the dues 25%, and when folks pushed back at the ARRL forum, the president pretty much said “get over it”.? The CEO and much of the board are new since then, so they seem to be doing a better job of soliciting input this time around.? But I missed the forum, so others may have to tell that story.? I also missed the DX forum, which would have been pretty interesting, with presentations on the one man expedition to Crozet (thanks for that new one), the almost expedition to Bouvet, and the T88WA and CY0S expeditions.? I usually make it to a couple forums, but then the weather is often crappy and worth getting in out of.???

All in all I had a super time!? Got to compare options for the things I was looking for, and ordered what I needed.? Got to enjoy Eric’s company—it has been a while.? Got to meet and chat with a bunch of smart, interesting people from all over the world.? Just could not ask for better weather.

So now that Eric is finished dragging me into the digital modes, and Jeff1 is nearly finished dragging me in to the 6m vhf game, and several folks poked enough fun to drag me into CW DXing, it’s Eddie’s turn to drag me into the satellite world.? I’m living proof that old dogs can learn new tricks, if the Elmer’s have enough patience.? And yes, Eddie, I will RTFM.? ?

Next up – Huntsville!

Dave UW? ?