Hamvention got into full swing this morning. The MARCO booth was an active place as usual - newsletters and membership applications flew off the table.
We welcome 5 new members who "took the plunge" today:
Paul Lilly K4STE
Mark Pinsky W8MP
Michael Strange WA2BHB
Yoshinobu Suwabe JH1URT
Joanne Maenpaa K9JKM
Members, old and prospective stopped by to chat. they included (a necessarily incomplete list, as I was not there all day and did not take notes when I was) Carl WA3ZZU, Bill WA9HIR, Stuart WA9PZL, Mike NR3C, Paul N5AN, George K2ONP, and my old friend Ramon YV5EED.
The prize for biggest purchase of the day goes to Chip N5RTF, who bagged a Begali Signature paddle. For those not familiar, it is a museum-quality code paddle with a highly-polished palladium base and gold-plated moving parts. It works as well as it looks.
The rest of us survived day one with only minor wallet damage.
A few general notes on Hamvention
It appeared that the gathering was smaller than in years past. Some vendor spaces, both indoors and outdoors were vacant, and the crowd was not as large as it is in some years. Still, they were abundant and enthusiastic. There are some marvelous new toys available - Elecraft showed its beautiful new K3 transceiver, and Ten Tec had the new Omni VII on display. Kenwood has a
VHF/UHF rig with built-in Echolink connectivity. That's cool! There was also a German-built HF transceiver on display that looked absolutely gorgeous. It is not quite yet available commercially, but will soon hit the market in the $10K price class. I only had a short time to spend in the flea market - will probably see it in more detail tomorrow. Carl 'ZZU did score a deal on a carton full of commercial band handheld transceivers. He has plans...
Chip raised the prospect of MARCO obtaining a space in the flea market next year in addition to the indoor booth. This would cost $70. We would have an outdoor presence, a place for members to sit if the weather is good, and we could use the space to permit members to sell their gear.
Once the day's gathering was over, N3IM, N5RTF, WA3ZZU and KM2L dined at Joe's crab house. The dinner discussion ranged from technology to theology to history and of course included clinical medicine.
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