Dayton 2011 Recap

Here is a recap of Dayton 2011

This years attendance was 22312.

May 20, 21, 22, 2011 weather in Dayton, Ohio was very pleasant. It was sunny in the upper 70's and lower 80's. However severe weather across the nation's midsection on Sunday caused travel challenges for many attendees who were flying home or driving to the west from Dayton.

The forums were well attended and one this year's most popular speakers was astronaut Col. Doug Wheelock, KF5BOC.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made a surprise visit to the Dayton Hamvention on Saturday morning, May 21 and liked what he saw.

A major sewer backup resulting in the closure of most of the rest rooms inside Hara Arena and there was a sewage leak into the flea market area. Everything was normal by Sunday.

Email from Tim Duffy K3LR
Thanks to Ben, AK2X for providing the custom hardware setup and chat software (specially written by Ben) for the Dayton contest webcam. We received many nice comments from all over the world. Everyone was very happy for Ben's hard work to provide this exciting technology. We hope to webcam more events next year.

Thanks to the professors at Youth CTU last led by Scott W3TX, along with Ben AK2X, Sarah, AK2D, Mark N5OT and several others. Yuri, VE3DZ and his friend provided Russian translation assistance for the Skype video conference between YCTU and young YL CW hams in Russia thanks to Paul, N0AH. It was exciting to see such awesome enthusiasm from YCTU. All Youth CTU students attended on full scholarship - thanks to the many supporters of this program. We also had a special presentation from the TI5N Youth DX team with a video by N6JRL and others. Contest University could not happen without the hard work and dedication by Scott, W3TX, Khrystyne, K1SFA, Jerry, K1SO and Dave W9ZRX. The professors at CTU were outstanding this year. Thanks to W3LPL, K1DG, N0AX, W8WWV, K1VR, K4ZA, K5ZD N4ZR, W5ZN, W0YK and NC0B all who prepared excellent papers and hosted lots of Q & A. 220 radio sport enthusiast attended the 10 hour event last Thursday. http://contestuniversity.com
Many Contest friendly vendors provide support to the CTU program. Thanks to the CTU Board of Directors K1DG, N9JA and K1AR for their guidance.
Two sessions of CTU (2 hours) were recorded by K4ZW using the PVRC Webinar program. Ken flew in special for CTU and had to go back to MD just after CTU ended Major thanks to K4ZW! Please visit the PVRC.org website to access the recorded CTU Webinar links.

The Mad River Radio Club, Frankford Radio Club and North Coast Contesters
hosted the Contest Super Suite for the 22nd straight year. K8CC from the Mad River Radio Club, K3WW from the Frankford Radio Club and K3LR from North Coast Contesters hosted the pizza party Thursday night. The Frankford Radio Club and Yankee Clipper Contest Club hosted the two weekend pizza parties in the Super Suite. 93 Pizzas and 300 QSL wings were consumed over all 4 nights - lots of smiles!

The 2011 Antenna forum awesome presentations from K4IQJ, ON4UN, W8VVG and K9LA will be posted later this week thanks to hosting from N5KO and help from K5TR. Watch http://www.k3lr.com for links.

The TopBand Dinner was hosted by George, K8GG and George, W8UVZ. 160 (yes, that's right!) TopBand enthusiasts and many wives attended this event. There were presentations on VP8ORK by VE3EJ and low cost receiving antennas by K3LR. These slide shows will be available for download from the
http://topBanddinner.com web site around June 1.

The Spurious Emission Band led by Ward, N0AX had a big audience Friday night. This was their 2nd year providing live band entertainment. Look for recorded links to be posted soon on http://contestsupersuite.com

The Contest forum had a packed house Saturday afternoon. Led by K1DG, presentations were made by W0CG (PJ2DX), K5ZD, W2SC, W5WZ and N4ZR. They were all excellent.

Scott, K0DQ presented a very inspirational talk last night at the 19th Annual Dayton Contest Dinner to the 420 who attended. The dinner was hosted by North Coast Contesters. We were honored to have special guest Ed, N4OC attend.

Congratulations to John, VE3EJ on his induction into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame - presented by the CQ WorldWide Contest Director, Bob, K3EST.

Thanks to many supporting vendors for the 100+ door prizes that were donated and given away last night at the Contest Dinner. The main prize was an Icom 7000 courtesy of Icom America. It was won by Rich, KL7RA from Alaska. Array Solutions (WX0B and W5OV) donated a significant number of expensive prizes. Thanks to all of the vendors!

K1AR (recently retired CQ Contest Column editor) received the Contest Dinner Special Achievement Award for his service of over 21 years writing the CQ Contest Column.

The 8 page Contest Dinner programs were provided by Lee, K7NM of www.photoqsls.com - the program will be posted to the http://contestdinner.com website soon.

Thanks to Scott, KA9FOX of QTH.com for maintaining and hosting the four
Dayton Contest web sites.

North Coast Contesters has negotiated a "block rate" for all rooms at the Crowne Plaza for 2012. The Crowne Plaza is undergoing a renovation that will be completed by October. The final booking details for next May are being finalized at this time. It is our desire to help provide a low hassle - reasonable cost way to stay at the "Contest" hotel next year. Watch here for directions on how to reserve your room for 2012 which will be posted within the next few weeks.

Hope you can join us in 2012 for exciting Dayton Contesting activities!
73,
Tim K3LR

Email from Tom Lee K8AZ
2011 was another GREAT Dayton. Good to see many faces at Hara and the NCC Super Suite.

First off, hearty and HUGE congratulations to NCC Charter Member VE3EJ, who was inducted last night into the CQ Contester Hall of Fame. John was most humble and gracious in his inductance speech, and passed on enormous credit to NCC for helping him evolve into a world class contester. John, we are
all honored by your achievements and enormously proud that another one of
our own has made it to the top.

Second, huge credit goes out to K3LR who, for contesters, has become "Mr.
Dayton". This week, Tim did the following:
- Organized and ran CTU, the contest university here at the Crowne Plaza
- Organized and made work the NCC Super Suite -- the hospitality suite of choice for Dayton contesters, and open Wednesday through Saturday nights;
- Hosted pizza parties -- personally serving hundreds of hungry contesters free pizzas and QSL wings Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.;
- Arranged for a performance of the "Spurious Emissions", the all-ham band led by N0AX;
- Organized and ran yet another Antenna Forum at the hamfest;
- Planned and organized the annual NCC Contesters Banquet -- securing an enormous treasure trove of truly valuable door prizes by personlly twisting the arms of dozens and dozens of Dayton exhibitors.

And all this was on top of his normal Dayton duties of greeting hams from all over the world (all of whom know the K3LR callsign), attending a CQ Contest Committee meeting and attending a WWROF Directors meeting (which -- you will not be surprised to know -- Tim hosted for breakfast!)

And on top of all that, I can now announce that, solely to the enormous efforts of Tim, next year ALL reservations for the Crowne Plaza hotel at Dayton will be made through NCC -- at a website that (guess who?) is setting up, and at guaranteed preferred rates (approx $140/$155 per night for standard/club rooms.) And Tim has passed all credit on to NCC, SO......congratulations John. And to Mr. Dayton: Strong work indeed!!
73,
Tom, K8AZ

(Dayton, OH - May 20, 2011) -- CQ magazine today announced its
2011 Hall of Fame inductees, welcoming 12 new members into the CQ
Amateur Radio Hall of Fame - ranging from a champion telegrapher to a
Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church - and one new member each into the
CQ DX Hall of Fame and the CQ Contest Hall of Fame. This year marks the
25th anniversary of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame and the tenth
anniversary of the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame (The CQ DX Hall of Fame
is the oldest of the three, honoring the world's top DXers since 1967).

The CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame honors those individuals,
whether licensed hams or not, who have made significant contributions to
amateur radio; and those amateurs who have made significant
contributions either to amateur radio, to their professional careers or
to some other aspect of life on our planet. The 2011 inductees (listed
alphabetically) are:

Bell, Dave, W6AQ - Hollywood TV/film producer; deeply involved in
producing multiple amateur radio promotional videos over several
decades.

Brightman, Nate, K6OSC - the "spark" behind W6RO, the ham station aboard
the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.

Ensor, Loretta, W9UA (SK) - On-air instructor in Morse code and radio
fundamentals between 1929 and 1941, responsible (with her brother) for
helping to get at least 900 new amateurs licensed.

Gunderson, Bob, W2JIO (SK) - Blind ham who was Editor and Publisher of
"The Braille Technical Press;" and the "answer man" at Hudson Radio on
New York's Radio Row, where he worked three days a week as a technical
advisor and consultant for the customers.

Mahony, Cardinal Roger, W6QYI - Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles,
advocate for immigration reform.

Margolis, Sylvia (no call) (SK) - Prolific CQ humor writer in the 1960s
and early '70s; first public relations officer for Radio Society of
Great Britain.

McElroy, Ted (no call) (SK) - World champion radiotelegrapher and key
manufacturer.

Moorefield, Ron, W8ILC - One of the guiding lights of the Dayton
Hamvention® for at least the past 30 years; national ham radio
coordinator for the cross-country 1984 Olympic Torch Relay.
Raff, Malcolm, WA2UNP (SK) - Astrophysicist, aerospace engineer and
biotechnologist; developed some of the earliest DNA sequencing
techniques and contributed software to the human genome project.

Schmieder, Robert, KK6EK - Noted DXer and DXpeditioner, physicist and
ecologist.

Stodola, E. King, W2AXO (SK) - The "father" of EME (Earth-Moon-Earth)
communications.

Taflove, Allen, WA9JLV - Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science at Northwestern University and a leading authority in
the field of computational electrodynamics.

The 2011 inductee to the CQ DX Hall of Fame is:
Michael J. McGirr, K9AJ - Mike is a leading DXpeditioner who has
operated literally from the ends of the Earth over nearly 30 years. His
many radio journeys have ranged from an Arctic expedition to Nunavut to
Heard Island, off the coast of Antarctica, and a variety of places in
between, including islands in the Indian Ocean, Caribbean and South
Pacific. Mike is also a director of the Island Radio Expedition
Foundation (IREF) and 2010 recipient of the W9DXCC Award of Excellence
in DXing.

The Dayton 2011 Photo Gallery is now up and contains 254 photos by Tom K8CX. Others are encouraged to submit their 2011 photos to be included on the Gallery. There must be at least one ham in the photo that isn't already listed on this page. There is a search engine on this page to make checking easy. All hams in the photos must be identified by callsign.

There is a list of Silent Keys that were paid tribute at the Contest Dinner. A moment of silence with much respect was given to them. They were: W1ZM, WA2EWE/T6AF, DL3TD, K8DD, K4FU, W8GFG, OY3QN,
K1DH, WA7NIN, KB6NAN, K3ITE, NM7M, IN3SAU, KK4TA,
VE3AR, W2MEL, W1OD, W4YA, W2BXA, YV1NX, W3ABC,
YS9RVE, W6KPC, K8OCL, W2JB, W8WH, HZ1HZ, 3D2AA,
W9SU, G3NOH, KHØAC, KP2YL, OH5NW, W3CP, AHØW.

Additional information for this page on Dayton 2011 can be submitted to K8CX.