Scanning the Airwaves

Carl and Jim and the line for tickets Back in May, I went to my first Hamvention, the largest ham radio convention in the world, held in Xenia, Ohio. I was originally planning on going in 2020 with Jim, KB1KQW, as we were discussing at that year's Boston Marathon training but then COVID happened. I flew out of Boston Logan on May 19th with Jim to Columbus, Ohio, where we met up with former Massachusetts native Carl, N1FY, who had settled down there after traveling the world until COVID struck.  From there, we drove to Dayton and checked into a Doubletree hotel in Miamisburg, Ohio. Then the next day it was off to Hamvention! There I was inducted into SLARC among other things, met some new people and came across those I knew. I also got to tour DARA's clubhouse! All in all, a good time. We left on Sunday and drove back to Columbus, spent the night at Carl's and flew back home the next morning. I will definitely be going back next year!

 Yes, I know. It's been a while since I posted, just under a year. Unfortunately, as we all know, 2020 is not a normal year.  Aside from attending the amateur radio training session for the 2020 Boston Marathon, the Marathon was delayed until September and ultimately cancelled and replaced with a virtual event. The same goes for the 2020 Head of the Charles Regatta.  I was planning on going to my first Hamvention , but that too was cancelled. As was the May and October editions of NEAR-Fest . My last hope for some ham action was the Northeast HamXposition , but alas, it was also cancelled. As have all the monthly MIT Fleas for the year. It's not all bad though, we've still had NSRA meetings via Zoom and continued them into summer, which usually is a break period for the club. Also, there have been virtual ham expos and fests online, such as the QSO Today Ham Expo and the HamXposition is going virtual too. I just recently got back from a 3 month work deployment on Na...

Last Friday and Saturday, I attended my first ever hamfest. NEAR-Fest stands for New England Amateur Radio Festival and is a hamfest that has been occurring every May and October at the Deerfield Fairgrounds since 2007. It was spawned from the ashes of a similar hamfest, The Hosstraders Tailgate Swapfest which had it's last event in October 2006. At our September meeting of the North Shore Radio Association , it was brought up that NEAR-Fest was just under a month and that something should be organized to sell off some of the silent key stash we had (including me with three boxes of books). At the end of September, on our usual Sunday night net, I called in via EchoLink to see if I could round up some help. Then a few days later, at the start of October, I posted on our Yahoo Groups mailing list to see if I could enlist some more help. In the end, the club treasurer, Eric, KA1NCF, a ham friend of his who lives down the street from him, Joel, N1KTH and myself went to ...