It has been a few days since I left Hamcon Colorado at Estes Park, but the glow hasn’t worn off yet! What a great event!
Joyce K0JJW and I drove up to Estes on Thursday night so we could help with the final setup on Friday morning. Brian N5ZGT (ARRL Rocky Mountain Division Director) gave a fine keynote address on Friday night. This was followed by Harold Kramer WJ1B, COO of the ARRL. Harold gave a Powerpoint tour of ARRL headquarters, which I found interesting.
The real show started on Saturday with tons of excellent technical and operating forums. I admit to some bias here as I did a presentation on Test Equipment for Amateur Radio and did a team presentation on the Colorado 14er Event. I attended a presentation by Mike Higgins K6AER on Lightning Safety. Mike did a great job of explaining proper grounding of an amateur station based on his commercial experience. Virgil Leenerts W0INK talked about switching power supplies, also an interesting presentation. Mike Gruber W1MG (EMC Engineer at ARRL HQ) covered powerline noise…a topic that has gotten quite a bit of my attention lately. Mike (W1MG) and I (plus a handful Technical Specialists in the section) staffed the Doctor is IN booth, answering any and all questions from the convention attendees. There were plenty of other forums that I could not attend based on other obligations but the feedback I heard was all positive. The only negative comment received was that we should have had a forum or two on contesting (valid feedback).
In between activities, I managed to chat with a number of hams I had not seen in quite a while. It is always good to connect up with old friends. W1AW/0 Special Event station was active…I did not get a chance to operate the station but I did make it a point to work them on 2 Meters with my HT.
We attended the banquet on Saturday night, also a great affair. Yes, it did go a little long but don’t they always? The breakfast on Sunday morning featured Gordon Harman W0RUN speaking about the Desecheo Island DXpedition. Gordon did a fine job mixing in a few tales from Peter I Island.
The attendance of Hamcon was 499, so the size pales in comparison to Dayton (duh). But I think the quality of the venue, the program and the people involved is far superior.
73, Bob