What I brought home from Hamvention

Hamvention

HARA

The Dayton Hamvention is this weekend and I will be there attending forums, buying ham radio necessities, receiving the Hamvention's Special Achievement Award and staffing the TAPR booths (451-454) in the Ball Arena of the HARA complex.

During my commute to and from and around Dayton, I will be running OpenAPRS from my iPhone, so watch for me on your APRS maps.

WHLM: News Radio 930

Monitored 930 kc during the morning commute and heard two stations, one already in the log and one new logging. WBEN out of Buffalo, NY, was already in the log, WHLM "News Radio 930" was a new one. WHLM transmits 2,000 watts from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, 190 miles to the west-southwest.

Coincidentally, WHLM and my previous new logging, WZMF in Nanticoke, PA, are right along the route I take for my annual roadtrip to Hamvention in Dayton, where I will be one month from today.

Hamvention

I had a great time at Hamvention this year. 

Our booth (TAPR) had more visitors and more sales than in the recent past and my guess is that Hamvention's overall attendance topped last year's 24,873.

In anticipation of Hamvention, I sold some ham hardware earlier this year to fund my shopping list and I bought an Elecraft KX3 at the show. Actually, they were out of stock by time I got to the Elecraft booth, but they offered an incentive to order the equipment for post-Hamvention delivery: no sales tax and no shipping charges. So I placed the order and expect delivery next week.

(In addition to the KX3 kit, I am also getting the optional PX3 panadapter, as shown above, KXFL3 dual passband roofing filter, KXAT3 automatic antenna tuner, KX3-2M 2-meter module and assorted optional connectors and cables.)   

By the way, the roadtrip to Hamvention this year convinced me that I am getting too old for the Hamvention roadtrip and this year's trip is probably my swan song. 

Next year, I fly.

Hello from Hamvention

I will be at Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio, this Friday and Saturday. When I am not attending forums, roaming the halls, and buying stuff, I will be staffing the TAPR booths (451-454)  in the Ball Arena of the HARA complex, so stop by and say, "Hello."

During my commute to and from and around Dayton, I will be running OpenAPRS from my iPhone, so watch for me on your APRS maps.

Dayton’s WONE

I go to the Hamvention in Dayton every year, so it was cool to log a Dayton AM radio station last evening at 2247 UTC: WONE transmitting 5 kW on 980 kc, 656 miles to my west southwest. Signal was S0 to S2 into the CC Radio 2E and Terk Advantage external antenna. WONE’s transmitter is located in Woodbourne, a suburb south of Dayton, just about one mile from the banquet hall where I attend the TAPR-AMSAT annual banquet each year during Hamvention.

At Hamvention 2014

The 2014 installment of the Hamvention was a memorable one.

I have been attending Hamvention regularly since 1978 and this year, we had some of the worst weather I have ever seen at Hamvention... even worse than when the event was held a month earlier when the potential for lousy weather was higher.

It rained, sleeted and hailed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Morning temps during those days started in the high 30's and did not get much above 50. I knew precipitation was in the forecast, but I did not expect it to be so cold and I did not dress appropriately. Luckily, I had a hoody to keep me warm when needed.

My family likes to watch my progress to and from Dayton via APRS, but I do not have a ham radio installed in my vehicle, so APRS was not an option. However, I do have an iPhone and there are some APRS apps for it. So I bought an app called OpenAPRS and it filled the bill as can be seen by my tracks as displayed on aprs.fi  above.

As I wrote in my previous blog post, "I always staff the TAPR booths on Hamvention Fridays and Saturdays, so if you make it to Hamvention this year, stop by... and say “Hi.” Well, at least one of you did just that: Dave = WA1OUI, who has been one of my most loyal readers and is also a long-time friend going back to the FM repeater wars of the 1970s. Dave was working in one of the ARRL booths just up the aisle and I returned the favor and stopped by his booth!

I ran into a lot of other old friends during the weekend --- not sure if they read this blog or not. Some showed up at the TAPR booth and some I bumped into on the convention floor; folks like Al = N8DHF, Bob = WB4APR, Craig = K1QX, Dave = K1ZZ, Guy = KC5GOI, Harold = WJ1B, Joe = K0NEB, Rich = W2VU, Steve = N8GNJ, Tom = K3IO and many others.

The TAPR booth was very busy all weekend, busier than its been at recent Hamventions probably because we had a lot to show this year. John = N8UR was showing his high precision timing projects, Jeremy = NH6Z and Scotty = WA2DFI were demonstrating SDR, Mike = No-Call-Yet had his HackRF attracting a lot of attention, Chris = KD2BMH was with his WhiteBox SDR handheld transceiver, and there was a big crew staffing the digital voice demo. I fielded packet radio and APRS questions and filled in at the cash register and elsewhere while others took breaks.

Touring the Hamvention floor on Saturday, I stopped by the booth of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. Since I dabble in both radio and astronomy, I thought that the booth would have something that interested me and I walked away with a radio telescope kit to receive signals from Jupiter, the Sun and the galactic plane. I will have more to say about this after I build the kit and get it on the air.

I hate the drive to and from Dayton, but I am already looking forward to doing it again next year!

About 750 miles west

As I mentioned here last month, I will attend Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio, this weekend.

This has become an almost annual trip ever since my former boss at ARRL headquarters, Ellen White, W1YL, pushed me out the door at 225 Main Street to attend my first Hamvention in 1978.

I estimate that I have attended about 30 Hamventions in the ensuing 36 years (I should have kept a log), which is kind of impressive since it is not a local event. Rather, it entails traveling about 750 miles west over some of the most boring Interstates (I won’t mention numbers) this side of the Mississippi River.

I have a lot of great memories and a lot of amusing stories – some of which were not so amusing at the time – from those 30-some visits. The opportunity to meet the superstars and makers and shakers of ham radio in person is a real treat as is the opportunity to get reacquainted with ham radio friends from around the world, who all show up in mid-May in the Gem City. (That’s me in the photo above at the 2009 Hamvention meeting Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, the first person to operate ham radio from space .)

I have been attached to TAPR for some time now, originally as just a card-carrying member, but eventually becoming their newsletter editor, secretary and a director on their board. And I always staff the TAPR booths on Hamvention Fridays and Saturdays, so if you make it to Hamvention this year, stop by our booths (numbers 451 through 454) just down the aisle from the ARRL and say “Hi.”

Hamvention Bound

One month from today, I will hit the road and head west to Ohio to attend Hamvention, the biggest ham radio show this side of the Arctic Circle.

I attend most years and this year will be no exception. And like most years, I will be staffing the TAPR suite of booths (numbers 451 through 454) Friday and Saturday.

If you are going to “Dayton,” stop by and say “Hello!”

Got OpenAPRS

When I bought my current set of wheels in 2007, I stopped using ham radio in the car except for special occasions because of the difficulty of installing ham radio equipment in a modern vehicle. On those special occasions, that is, my annual roadtrips to the Hamvention in Dayton, I would install a temporary 2-meter APRS set-up with wires and equipment laid out willy-nilly throughout the vehicle. Except for those trips, WA1LOU was off the APRS map.

And so it goes... until recently.

My family gifted me an iPhone 5 for Christmas and I love it. I am not a phone person; I only use the phone when absolutely necessary, so I never bothered owning a cell phone. However, the other capabilities of the iPhone sold me on it; for me, the iPhone is a pocket computer and its phone functions are secondary.

For my trek to Dayton this year, I uninstalled my Tom Tom GPS and replaced it with my iPhone mounted on the dashboard where the GPS used to reside uisng an iOttie HLCRIO104 Easy Flex 2 Windshield Dashboard Car/Desk Mount Holder (it works great and I highly recommend it).

Despite the disparaging reviews of the iPhone Maps app, I used Maps to get me to, from and around Dayton without a hiccup.

Since Hamvention, whenever I am in my car, I put the iPhone in the dashboard mount whether I use Maps or not because it is safer there than on the empty passenger seat or in the empty cup holder. And I have it plugged into a cigarette lighter charger so it is fully charged (or close to it) when I remove it from the dashboard mount.

Studying the iPhone mobile installation awhile back, I thought about running APRS with it. It would not be APRS via ham radio RF, but via cell phone RF, but it would still be APRS and a nice addition to my roadtrips. I searched the App Store to see what APRS apps were available for the iPhone. The App Store found a few, so I read the descriptions and the reviews trying to decide which one to download to my iPhone.

OpenAPRS was my choice. After downloading and registering it, I configured it. In the past, configuring an APRS installation was such a pain the dupa that you could write a book about it! Good news is that OpenAPRS is easy to configure - it took about a minute - and I had it up and running quickly.

After driving to work running OpenAPRS, I checked aprs.fi to see how well OpenAPRS performed and I was very happy to find my route perfectly drawn on the aprs.fi map; APRS via cell phone RF worked just as well as APRS via ham radio RF for that 22-mile trip.

By the way, Verizon is my cell phone RF provider and I am very happy with its service. For what it's worth, while staffing the TAPR booth in the Hara Arena at Hamvention this year, my iPhone had great cell phone RF service, while other people in the booth using iPhones with other cell phone service providers had poor or no service inside the arena.

Getting back to OpenAPRS... it has the following APRS-related screens:

Settings screen - where you push buttons and enter text to set up and control the software

Messaging screen - where you can enter texts to be sent via APRS

Search screen - to find other APRS stations

Objects screen - where you can create an APRS object

Maps screen - to display APRS activity on a map

OpenAPRS also has built-in a compass, a search FCC database function, technical support and help. Also, you can choose from three types of maps: a Google road map, a Google satellite map and a hybrid that combines features of the two.

What I like about the Google satellite map version is that when I zoom into my workplace, the current Google satellite image shows my green Subaru parked in the exact same spot where I usually park it every workday with my APRS station icon overlaid on my vehicle!

How cool is that!

Surfin': The Smartphone Software-Defined Ham Radio Hack

This week, Surfin’ checks out a ham who is developing a handheld radio that’s a cross between a smart phone and an SDR.

Surfin’: A Hamvention Diary

This week, Surfin’s contributing editor recounts last week’s excellent adventure at the Dayton Hamvention.

Surfin’: Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

This week, Surfin’ recounts seeing great sights at the Hamvention.

Surfin’: One Week ’til Dayton

This week, Surfin’ gets more ready for the Dayton Hamvention®.

Surfin’: Two Weeks ’til Dayton

This week, Surfin’ gets ready for the Dayton Hamvention.

Surfin’: Spring Can’t Come Quick Enough

This week, Surfin’ visits websites with warmer weather in mind.

Surfin’: Not How to Contest

This week, Surfin’ rediscovers the fun -- and frustration -- of ham radio contesting.

Surfin’: Hammin’ at the Hamvention®

This week, Surfin’ recalls the hits and misses at the 2010 Dayton Hamvention.

Surfin': Buyin’ Parts, Part 2

This week, Surfin’ plans to visit the biggest source of ham radio parts this side of the Sun.

plants in

Depending on the weather, I usually plant my vegetables during the week after the Dayton Hamvention.

Well, the weather has been lousy around here: we have had a very cold and wet spring. It has been so cold that I actually have turned the furnace on a few times since returning from Dayton.

Weather be damned, June was only days away and I had to get the vegetables in the ground.

So, Tuesday evening I prepared my five Earthboxes: I loosened up the soil with a gardening fork, removed any roots and stalks leftover from last season, put in two cups of fertilizer in each box, installed new blag plastic covers (I used black plastic garbage bags cut to size), then filled the reservoirs with water.

Wednesday evening, I planted six Big Boy tomato plants, six red pepper plants, and three basil plants. Then, I ringed each plant with slices of Styrofoam coffee cups to keep out the snails. And I was done.

I checked the plants this morning and they survived the night.