Zack,
After flying home yesterday, I'm able to sit down and get caught up on e-mails and other stuff. The weekend was fun - both at the Hamvention, and my travel around that part of the country before flying home. :-)
In addition to Patrick's email, I thought I would throw in my 2 cents of the events on Friday. It was great getting to meet a few new faces including finally getting to meet Patrick, WD9EWK, face-to-face!
It was good to meet many who have been on the air in the past couple of years, since my last trip to Dayton. I was a on a plane to Australia during the start of the 2011 Hamvention. I had no interruptions from my office during this trip, which was much better than in 2010 when I missed the banquet due to an issue that kept me on the phone with the office for almost 4 hours!
Thank you to the stations that we worked on Friday - the crowd was very attentive during the operations and many showed interest in getting started with satellite operations. I was at the AMSAT demo area all day Friday, and it was nice hearing all of the familiar calls and voices still on the air after my recent absence due to school. Keith, W5IU and Roger, WA9ZPL put a lot of time and effort into these demos, and I know they appreciate the participation. They deserve a nice round of cyber applause for their commitment over the many years.
Keith and Roger were very happy to put others on the mic at the demo station. Along with the passes I worked Friday afternoon, I also worked some passes Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. I heard and saw Doug KD8CAO on the mic Saturday morning, and I worked Doug on a VO-52 pass when I was on the Indiana/Ohio state line Saturday morning. If nobody else was around to move the antenna array, Keith or Roger would happily do that.
I was told of a ham from southern Indiana (Ken KC9TTR) who visited the Hamvention over the weekend. Ken took interest in the AMSAT booths, saw demonstrations, and decided to give this a try. He bought an Arrow antenna, took it home, and on Sunday he tried SO-50. On one pass at the end of the Hamvention, the crowd (including a couple of people who know him) heard his call come through. Later in the afternoon, he worked me while I was parked on the Indiana/Ohio state line after the Hamvention. He e-mailed me, saying that I was his first satellite contact, and asking how he needed to log the contact in LOTW so he would see the confirmation for both states. Not long after I replied to him and uploaded my QSOs from Sunday, he saw the confirmations in his LOTW account, and two states via satellite toward WAS.
AMSAT does a great job with its presence at the Hamventions, with the booth located next to the larger ARRL presence and the demonstration area outside. The Hamvention does a great job of supporting AMSAT. They provide a fenced area for the demos, and give a contribution to AMSAT at each of the last few Hamventions (including this year).
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/