Tag: ham radio

Things to Do at Hamvention 2018

Hamvention is literally around the corner. Hope you got your hotel booked…I don’t and I hope one of you don’t show up at the Crowne Plaza!

Here’s a handy guide on what to do before, during, and after Hamvention 2018.

Before you Arrive

Join the Hamvention Discord Chat

You don’t even want to try the talk in…trust me. Every year it gets overran by lids streaming audio of a particularly indecent nature. Discord integrates voice chat within the app, so who needs repeaters anyway?

This server was created by the same hams behind Young Amateurs Radio Club discord server, so expect a younger audience. It’s not affiliated with DARA or Hamvention so don’t expect parking directions and stuff, but do watch out for good deals, funny photos (people of Hamvention style), memes, information, and meetups.

Click Here to Join!

(you’re welcome Dom)

Subscribe to Hamvention Texts

Text Hamvention18 to 888777 to subscribe to official Hamvention communications and alerts. That might come in handy for those us heretics without radios.

Make a Forum Plan

Download the Official Hamvention Forum Schedule on Google Calendar (by clicking here, then click the + Google Calendar Link that looks like:

and figure out what you want to go see before you arrive.

You can also download the PDF schedules with full descriptions at  http://hamvention.org/event-details/forums/

Here are my recommendations. Hopefully this helps you decide what you might want to see. It’s a hearty mix of the Ham Radio 2.0 spirit, incorporating youth, HamSCI, the Collegiate Initiative, networking, DMR, SDR, and the like, as well as ARRL members forum and stories from the 2017 Hurricane season.

You can also subscribe to or download my forum recommendations here:

Definitely check out the APRS forum (10:45am – 11:45am, Room 1) to learn – from yours truly – about what the best APRS app really is. Hint.

Make a Vendor Plan (and get some maps)

All of the Vendors as well as maps can be seen here. I don’t have a clue what the next greatest HF, VHF, UHF, HT Mobile Base whatever rig is this year (nor do I really care) but if you’re into that sort of thing, hit up the big 3 (and don’t forget to grab a Yaesu Hat).

Must See and Do at Hamvention

Ham Radio 2.0 Row

This area – located in Building 4 (Volta) opposite of the Prize Booth – will be a hotbed of next-generation activities, vendors, speakers, and guests.

More information and speaker list at http://www.arrl.org/news/look-for-ham-radio-2-0-innovation-and-discovery-at-hamvention

Get a free Ham Radio 2.0 button here!

Youth Forum, Lounges and Activities

The Youth Forum (Saturday 09:15 – 12:00, Room 2) moderated by Carole Perry WB2MGP, has been going on for over two decades, and showcases the activities of the brightest youth in the hobby (and showers them with prizes!) There is always a HUGE drawing for the whole audience too (I won my Kenwood TH-F6a there!) so make it a point to attend this. Otherwise check out HamSci (Saturday 09:15 – 10:30 Room 4)

Across from HamRadio2.0 Row is the Youth Tech lounge featuring FIRST robotics, and the ARRL EXPO area (Building 2) will have a Youth Lounge area.

Get a Name Call Sign Badge

If you don’t have one, get one printed on site, same day, super cheap! Gold Medal Ideas (booth #3609, back of Building 3/Marconi) will hook you up.

(That was not an ad by the way, I just CTRL+F’d for “Badge” on the vendor page.)

At hamvention, your callsign is your name. And if you don’t have a call sign…well…

Get Licensed

Hamvention hosts exams, and will get your callsign into the ULS system by the very next day. It’s pretty legit.  More info here.

Buy Cheap Junk in the Flea Market

Note I didn’t tell you to plan out what you should buy at Hamvention. It’s like walking around in Home Depot to discover you should hang a new door or fix your toilet…you’ll know what to buy when you see it, trust me.

And if you do have something particular in mind, arrive early! All the good stuff goes FAST!

After Parties and Other Events

Collegiate Ham Radio Dinner at Hamvention 2018

Friday 6:30pm – 9pm at Cadillac Jacks Sports Bar & Grill Fairborn, 1156 Kauffman Ave, Fairborn, Ohio 45324.

RSVP at the Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1651353878280525/

YACHT Pizza Party

YACHT – the Youth Amateur Communications Ham Team (http://yacht.younghams.org/) – will be hosting a pizza party on Saturday 5:00pm (approx) at Marion’s Piazza,  1320 N. Fairfield Rd., Beavercreek, Ohio (map).

Contest Super Suite Pizza Party

Basically the same thing as the YACHT pizza party, except for adults. Oh and the pizza is FREE! Cash bar to boot. Friday AND Saturday Night, 11pm – ???? in the Harding Room at Crowne Plaza Downtown Dayton (map).

Other events are at http://hamvention.org/event-details/event-schedule/, but note most dinners will be sold out at this point – something you should definately look into next year if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

Tired of Hamvention? Check out Air Force Museum

Dayton’s Air Force Museum is pretty legit, and it’s a must see at some point on your Dayton adventure, especially if you’re bring family along. If you’re lucky, you might get to see some fighter jets take off for test flights!

You can also check this link out for more non-Hamvention things to do in Dayton.

Not Going to Hamvention? Watch the Streams!

Stay tuned to W5KUB, HamRadioNow to watch the forums and see the flea markets, and #hamvention on Twitter and Instagram. I’m taking a break from streaming stuff, but I do plan to record some video and post to my YouTube channel.

If you have any additions, suggestions, corrections or comments, leave a comment below or send me an email.

See you there!

Introducing the Young Amateurs Radio Club

Today is a great day. Amateur Radio has a new radio club made by the youth, for the youth:

https://yarc.world/

We founded a club for young hams! from amateurradio

That’s David, KD2OAH , who posted this thread on reddit. Unsurprisingly, some hams were iffy and curmedgoney about the idea of a Discord (which is cancer, by the way, see below or here 🙄) when there’s already a reddit IRC. He also initially wanted it to be for Young Hams on Long Island, NY, but seeing that there was  1.) there’s probably not a lot of young hams on Long Island and 2.) probably no discord for young people in ham radio at all and, I asked him, among others, to extend it to the whole ham-o-sphere. That lead to the creation of the Young Hams discord chat. It was way more popular than David thought, currently at 70 active members (and 200 members total), dozens of chat rooms, a few voice chat rooms, a gaming hams spinoff and it’s all almost too hard to keep up with at times, which is a great thing.

There are several youth oriented US radio clubs and organizations [1][2][3][4] but they’ve all been created by older hams as an initiative to attract youth into the hobby1. They have served their purpose well, as now the youth are beginning to form their own clubs.

There is no hard and fast age rule: I’m 26, and some of our members are in their late 30s. Most members are either in high school or college.

If you don’t remember the cold war, are two standard deviations less than the mean age of radio amateurs, or are a strong supporter of youth in the hobby, then you are welcome to join. YARC doesn’t discriminate, but maybe don’t go on rants starting with ‘BACK IN MY DAY….’

And all political discussion can be held in #politics.

Many more cool things to come soon!

🆒
1. Youngsters on the Air (YOTA) is the only other club I know of that was started by and for young hams. It’s centered around IARU Region 1 – Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Asia.↩

Engaging Women in Amateur Radio

Yesterday was International Women’s day, and while lying in bed last night, I had a thought about all the times I’ve seen women at my local radio clubs….

  1. WA0FYA had a female treasurer, a female secretary, and the secretary’s daughter would frequently attend, and that was it.
  2. Occasionally a female would show up to W0EEE events and/or meetings, usually a friend of one of the male members, but we never had a solid attendance or interest by females
  3. At SLSRC, the current president’s wife is on a number of committee chairs, and the secretary is female, and about 10% of the 200 or so members are women, usually there are one or two per meeting
  4. At one particular club meeting, a twenty-something non-licensed woman showed up, and was hounded at the end of the meeting by a few club members lambasting about how there aren’t enough “YLs in ham radio” and that this person should help us figure out why… he didn’t realize he was a part of the problem, and the impetus for this post.

And that’s about it. Every hamfest, convention, meeting, field day, contest, and contact I’ve made, I’ve always seen a massive disparity in female involvement and inclusion. I won’t explain why here, just because STEM think tanks have beaten that horse nearly dead [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Ham radio is a STEM hobby after all, and shares a lot of characteristics with the industry.

Instead, I want to explain in some simple terms how to be more engaging and welcoming to young women in ham radio. This applies mainly to young women coming into ham radio for the first time, but can also generally apply to women of any age.

We know ham radio is a male dominated hobby. There aren’t good numbers on it, but one ARRL article mentioned women represent 15% of the US ham population, with N8RMA’s 2017 State of Amateur Radio survey showing the average ham has had a license for 32 years!! (also go take this year’s if you haven’t already!)

This is the first barrier to interest from both young people, and women. Why would any young person, woman or not, want to spend their time with a bunch of snoring geriatrics[1]?

Ham radio has some work to do to help take on the in induction of women into STEM (now that parents are becoming less like their parents and so on, encouraging and exposing their daughters to do traditionally boyish, nerdy, and sciencey things, and that schools and governments are heavily pushing STEM initiatives to the current generation), so here’s a list of things what we as ham radio leaders should avoid, and should do.

How to Attract & Retain Women in Ham Radio

Don’ts:

  1. Avoid divisive behavior
    1. Reduce or remove the use of the terms YL and XYL when speaking to women (or anyone), especially to newcomers[2]
    2. Don’t call attention to the fact she is a woman in a room full of men
      1. This is seconded by Jesten (my fiancée)…seriously, women already know they’re in the minority, so avoid mentioning that.
    3. Don’t assume that a woman joining your club will be immediately interested in driving for other female membership
    4. Avoid sexist humor in public groups on the internet
  2. Rescind traditional gender expectations and stereotypes
    1. Understand and avoid the double bind stereotype – the stereotype that women are nice, kind and compassionate, which are contrarian to tough and decisive stereotypes about leadership. We think as female leaders are controlling, aggressive, and mean, whilst male leaders are ambitious and strong.
    2. As leaders, have zero tolerance of stereotypes from membership

Dos:

  1. Be welcoming and friendly to all newcomers
  2. Be a storyteller
    1. Anecdotal evidence points to women having a strong interest in the connections between engineering (ham radio) and how it helps the world, so talk about how ham radio saves lives and how hams invented today’s wifi and cellular systems.
    2. All astronauts are strongly encouraged (maybe even required) to get amateur radio licenses, including female astronauts. This makes a good talking point.
  3. Introduce the Young Ladies’ Radio League and talk about history of women in ham radio
  4. Start a female focus group or committee within your club

On the note of celebrating women, big round of applause for Val Hotzfeld NV9L for achieving the Hamvention Ham of the Year award!

Congrats Val!

Resources & Links

footnotes:

[1] I attended a meeting recently where someone was snoring during the presentation, and nobody did anything about it since it’s apparently how they’ve always attended every meeting…wtf?

[2] This has been getting a lot of flak in some groups, with the counterargument that “YL just means Young Lady, what’s wrong with that?” What’s wrong is 1) that it’s jargon, which should always be avoided with new people, and 2) it minimizes and ostracizes women, with the definition of young lady being a being woman not far advanced with life aka girls. Additionally, IMO, anything that portrays delineation or divisive attention to females should be avoided.

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