Dayton Hamfest

Today I went to the Dayton Hamfest and ARRL National convention (they were combined this year). It is the largest hamfest in the country. Although I've only been an hour away for the last 12 years, I've never been. I haven't been active on the amateur bands, but I thought I'd go to find some power supply and antenna equipment for my low power radio to do some operating when mobile.
It took me all morning just to walk through the indoor exhibits. The picture here is only one of several indoor areas at the Hara Arena in Dayton. The new radio technology has really improved in the last decade. Just like most electronic gadgets, there are more features packed in a smaller space. Unfortunately, I didn't find what I needed. Nevertheless, it was an interesting day. Click here to see a few other photos including a motorcycling ham that had over a million miles on a Honda Goldwing.

There were a lot of people there and folks representing many different countries. It's relatively easy to tell where folks are from as most people wear name badges that also have their amateur radio call sign. The prefix of the callsign tells you what country they are from. I saw people from England, Scotland, Finland, several Eastern European countries, Japan, and of course Canada. There were folks from all over the US.