Author: N0SSC

Twenty-something year old amateur radio operator. I love everything about ham radio. Trying to learn CW and contest more, and doing my best to promote youth involvement and retention in this rapidly aging hobby.

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.↩

Is HF actually that dead?

I found a ridiculous article from my Google News feed about the upcoming massive Solar Maelstrom which could definitely probably affect the entire electrical grid and cause headaches on 14 March.

Or is it 18 March? …the article is confused.

There is a much more reputable site for solar weather – http://spaceweather.com/

Pi day, 14 March is indeed the correct date. I also favor http://solarham.net/ for it’s awesome listing and displays of solar weather data, like this pretty solar wind gif that…shows the solar wind stuff (I don’t know my solar weather jargon…).

Wow…it’s really not that bad.

So yea, that article was just another clickbait that doesn’t actually know wtf’s going on. Kinda like the deorbiting Chinese space station that has a non-zero chance of landing on your Minivan…

[UPDATE: See? Calm down news media.]

A little farther down the page is some news we hams are too familiar with: a completely naked sun, devoid of a single sunspot.

🙁

Could you find any dark cores? Answer: No. The last time the sun was blank more than 50% of the time was in 2009, near the end of the deepest Solar Minimum of the Space Age. Now the sun is entering a new Solar Minimum, and it is shaping up to be even deeper than before.

-Spaceweather.com

Could this be the worst news for ham radio? Will the bands be forever dead?!

Well, relative to the early 2000s, yea. But to me, absolutely not. I got into ham radio in 2007 when we were at the dead bottom of that solar cycle. I annotated the sunspot number progression chart with my history in amateur radio:

Propagation isn’t so bad when you don’t actually know it’s been the worst in a few decades…

And believe it or not, those years between 2007 and 2010 were some of the best times I had on HF. I was contesting, DXing, building antennas, the whole shebang.

2009 was when I was getting into YouTubing my adventure – smack dab at the bottom of the cycle, and from 2007 to 2011 was some of my peak enjoyment of HF before heading to college. Here’s the playlist to prove it.

So, sure ~some~ of the bands are dead, but it’s not all that bad. There is a ton of fun to be had on ham radio, even on HF.