This week, find out why the Dayton Hamvention is Amateur Radio's real big show.

Anybody who regularly reads what I write knows that I am a big fan of the Dayton Hamvention. Why?

At the Hamvention, you can see (and buy) just about every ham radio whiz-bang gizmo that is currently for sale by the various ham radio manufacturers and dealers. Browse the huge flea market and you can see (and buy) ham radio whiz-bang gizmos from the past. There are bargains to be found if you look hard enough and use that green paper printed by the US Bureau of Printing and Engraving instead of plastic.

Next weekend, ham radio's real big show takes over the environs of Dayton, Ohio.

Personally, the opportunity to eyeball the ham radio nation is what draws me to the Hamvention every year. You can see, meet, talk and listen to the movers and shakers in ham radio. Experts in various fields appear at the Hamvention forums where they talk about their areas of expertise. It seems like the whole ARRL Headquarters staff moves from Newington to Dayton for the Hamvention and many of your elected ARRL representatives show up. The staffs of the dealers and manufacturers are there in full force, too.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so in lieu of hundreds of thousands of words, here are links to Web sites that contain photos from past Hamventions. If these whet your appetite enough, I expect to see you next weekend in Dayton.

• 2004 Hamvention photos from the Collins Collectors Association and Gene Duprey, K1GD, George McClintock and Morel Grunberg, 4X1AD

• 2003 Hamvention photos from David Norris, KG9AE and lots of other folks

• 1997-2004 Hamvention photos from Tom Roscoe, K8CX

These are just the tip of the iceberg. Google images found 1420 Web pages of Hamvention images!

With a new used tranny installed, the land barge is prepped for another 170,000 miles and my annual trek to the Dayton Hamvention. Have APRS, will travel, so watch findu.com for WA1LOU-8 traversing the Interstates between Downtown Wolcott and Dayton. I will moderate the APRS Forum on Friday morning (Room 1 at 9 AM), be at the ARRL's Author's Table on Friday (1-2 PM) and Saturday (12-1 PM) and man the TAPR booth off and on, so stop by and say "Hello" if you attend the Hamvention.

Until next week, keep on surfin'.

Editor' note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, says that a bad day at the Dayton Hamvention is better than a good day at work. If you disagree, e-mail Stan.

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