WIA represented at Dayton Hamvention 2022

On the 19th-22nd of May, new WIA Director Chris Dimitrejivic VK3FY and WIA Vice President Lee Moyle VK3GK attended Dayton Hamvention in Ohio USA representing the WIA.

Dayton Hamvention is renowned to be one of the “big three” hamfests in the world. The other two are Friedrichshafen in Germany being held in late June and Tokyo Hamfair which is to be held in August later this year.

For those local VK hamfest attendees, here is a size comparison.
Wyong Field Day, or Mayham which is VK’s biggest hamfest we understand gets about 500-600 attendees.
Local VK3 hamfests attract about 250-350 attendees with often having 40-70 vendor tables booked is not uncommon.

Dayton Hamvention usually attracts about 35,000 attendees from all over the world, although most are from the USA. This is over 100 times bigger than our local hamfests. It’s hard to comprehend unless you have experienced the event first hand.
Rough statistics this year suggest about 29,000 to 30,000 attendees.
(Official attendee numbers just released were: 31,367)
Down a little this year but Covid is still quite prevalent in most parts of the USA. Also many countries borders are still restricted or closed to tourist travel.

There are 6 main buildings that cater for over 460 vendor booths. The outside flea market or car boot sales area, which is the whole inside arena at the Green County Fairgrounds has just over 2700 spaces available. This year most spots were taken up by sellers.

The weather in Dayton is quite predictably unpredictable but you can guarantee hot and humid days of around 28 to 30C with a humidity in the 70-80% range. Along with the usual thunderstorm and Tornado warnings, which we had in both cases.

The Hamfest Program is comprehensive and starts early on Thursday morning with “Contest University” or ‘CTU’.

Registrations from 7am, with CTU starting at 9am till 5pm finish.

This year CTU was live streamed on Youtube and will be available for viewing after the event.

Evenings are taken up by specialist dinners.
The DX Dinner and Contest dinners are the favorites of many and this is where DXers and Contesters are recognized for their contributions to Amateur Radio and inducted into the respective halls of fame.

Afterwards the “Hospitality Suites” take over, which are social get togethers with tall stories and tales of that ATNO that got away.

Hamvention runs 9am till 5pm Friday, Saturday and the first half of Sunday 9am until 1pm close.
First prize giveaway this year was an ICOM IC7851, with many consolation prizes.

WIA Directors Chris and Lee took the opportunity to meet with other International peak body representatives such as ARRL, RSGB, DARC and IARU. They discussed the potential changes to our VK licencing structure, high power proposals, examination processes amongst many other things.
Lee commented that “It was great to meet ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR and ARRL FCC Council David Siddall, K3ZJ. Early discussions were had about reciprocal licencing processes along with CEPT and HAREC compliance.”

The WIA will be following up with ongoing zoom meetings to solidify the relationships.

Although this trip was partly official WIA business, it was totally self funded by both Chris and Lee and as such, no WIA member’s funds were used.

Page Last Updated: Thursday, 02 Jun 2022 at 09:28 hours by Lee Moyle

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