Fwd: Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts?
At 08:57 AM 5/26/2005 -0400, you wrote: Looks like this didn't go through yesterday when I sent it, so this is a second try. My apologies if you got it twice! Good Morning Ron all: Please let me raise an issue that I haven't seen addressed here. Very simply, are Dayton HamCom too close together on the calendar? This year, it will be two weeks between. Yeah, Yeah, I know, HamCom doesn't draw the crowd that Dayton does, but if they were farther apart, would both benefit. In my simple life, it's a no-brainer. HamCom is a 4 hour drive, and the costs are much lower. Thoughts? 73, Mike, W5UC Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts? (Long)
Mike, Well, it doesn't help. Problem is that at this time of the year, it's going to be very difficult to NOT find another event (be it a hamfest or a contest or whatever) that's not too close to Hamvention weekend. And even when it's not... For example, the Breezeshooter's Hamfest used to be the weekend before Memorial Day weekend. When Hamvention was the last weekend in April, that left usually three weeks between. Breezeshooters eventually changed their date to the first weekend in June, leaving about 5 weeks on average in between. Nice cushion, right? Then Hamvention changed their date... now leaving usually 2 weeks between the events, closer than ever. This change hasn't benefited the Breezeshooters in the least (tho I know that this was an unintended consequence of the Hamvention move). OTOH, it's still better than having the two events a week apart -- or like this year due to the calendar, they theoretically would have been on the same weekend (ouch!)... 73 - Original Message - From: Mike(W5UC) Kathy(K5MWH) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ron Notarius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 9:40 AM Subject: Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts? (Long) Good Morning Ron all: Please let me raise an issue that I haven't seen addressed here. Very simply, are Dayton HamCom too close together on the calendar? This year, it will be two weeks between. Yeah, Yeah, I know, HamCom doesn't draw the crowd that Dayton does, but if they were farther apart, would both benefit. In my simple life, it's a no-brainer. HamCom is a 4 hour drive, and the costs are much lower. Thoughts? 73, Mike, W5UC Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts? (Long)
At 08:57 26-05-05, Ron Notarius wrote: (1)Attendance cost continues to climb. 12 years ago, the discrepancy between tickets bought in advance and at the door was $2. Now it's $5. So those who decide on short notice to go (and this includes those who weren't sure until the last minute if they COULD go) get socked. Now add in daily parking of $7 - $10 (when it used to be $4 or $5). Park at the Salem Mall? Sure, it's free parking, but the bus ride (once free) is now an $8 ticket. And if there's any other public transit to the HARA Arena, I'm not aware of it. Point is, when you add all this up, it can cost around $45 or more just to walk in the door. That's a lot of shekels to spend. Solution: Somehow, DARA has to find a way to drop ticket prices. Whether or not they can get the parking vendor(s) to cut their prices too is arguable, but they can at least try. One of my other hobbies is literary science fiction, and my wife and I try to get to about 3 or 4 conventions a year. These are typically gatherings of fans and authors, mostly low-key but with great parties, a decent dealer's room and much frivolity. These are typically held in hotel/convention centres. Regional conventions typically cost about $50 a weekend at the door and about $40 or so if you pre-register. Hotels are always better in quality and all cost about $100 or so a night, often with paid parking. The equivalent to Hamvention is called Worldcon (the World Science Fiction convention), and is hosted in a different city every year. At the door memberships are close to $200 or more (these are 5-day extravaganzas, usually held over the Labour Day weekend in the US but always in the summer). Add in airfare, hotels, etc and it's a $1500 weekend easily. Worldcons typically average about 4000 attendees. To get to Dayton costs me $190 in airfare, $300 in hotels, $70 for a rental car and finally a paltry $28 for the show itself with bus transfers included plus 3 meals a day. If I drove from NYC it would be three tankfulls of petrol (about $90) instead of airfare+car. For the opportunity to immerse myself in my favourite hobby, learn about many new products and services that impact my enjoyment, get to participate if forums, attend banquets and hospitality suites with 20,000 of my fellow hams is WELL worth the money spent. (2)Exhibitors are dropping like flies. Most cited reason: Too expensive. DARA adopted a policy some years ago to charge more for multiple flea market spaces, this back in the days when the flea market sold out well in advance and there was a waiting list. Cutting a break to your huge vendors is almost a given these days This is a dumb policy, especially in light of eBay and E-Ham's popularity. I, too expected to see more spaces filled in the flea market given Saturday's (unusually) perfect weather. They have to do something to change this trend, absolutely. we've all heard by now about Mendolsen's (sp?) dropping out because they didn't get a break. How much did that hurt? Didn't affect me personally. I've gone through their tent in the past and found much of it to be junque. Good for power cords and muffin fans, perhaps. What were some of the vendors thinking? The Hamsexy.com goofballs were handing out toothbrushes. (What does being the anti QRZ.COM mean, anyway?). Hang out on Hamsexy.com for a while and you'll see why. QRZ.com will banish any member who even makes reference to Hamsexy in one of their forums, etc. Hamsexy itself is a movement by hams who are tired of the bad reputation given to practitioners of our fair hobby by the smelly, unkempt anti-social and otherwise slovenly members. You know, the ones that make you have, what I call, a divide-by-zero error, or like strangled sound the Aflac duck makes when encountering a Yogi Berra comment. Or hams who will try to squeeze a penny so hard that they goose Abe and create copper wire in the process. Personally, I'm glad they came out and hope their message gets around more. Yaesu was hading out breath mints. I've done trade shows of all kinds in the past. It's a move towards self-preservation. Trust me. I ran into one ham last weekend who sure could have used some, lemme tell you! ICOM had those young girls running around in pink fuzzy robes slippers, wearing PJ's T-Shirts underneath, handing out personal hygiene kits. That was a little tacky. OK, a lot tacky. And the US Towers girls weren't too far behind. If you're going to hire Sweet Young Things to help sell your product, at least get some YLs who are old enough to vote and legally purchase alcohol. Better still, leave the YLs to car makers, football stadia and breweries and let your products speak for themselves. - pjd W2IRT Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA
[DX-CHAT] KP1-KP5
Did anyone record this session this morning and have it available to listen to or download ? Just got to the ham shack to late this morning and don't want to miss it. Rod WC7N [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Forums Locations
George, You bring up an very good point. While the move to the Crown Plaza may have been the best thing for the forums involved, I think it was a terrible thing for Hamvention overall. Why? Because it splits up the events, pure and simple. Those of us who enjoy visiting some or all of multiple forums were cheated, because it was simply not possible to quickly travel from the CP to the Arena (or vice versa) to fit some or all of the Antenna and/or Contest forum in with everything else. For example: On Saturdays, I go primarily for the DX forum, but I like to also vist the FCC, Antenna, and Contest forums. Couldn't do it this year, and I'm sorry I missed even a piece of the Antenna Contest forums -- and those who stayed at the CP for those two forums missed a great talk by VU2RBI on the VU4 expedition, and another great talk by K4UEE on how why the logistics failed on the 3Y0 attempt -- just to name two. (And yes, I know some of this is also covered sometimes at the DX Dinner the night before, but not all of can make that either, and that's another story anyway). I think a better solution than moving the forums to the Crown Plaza would be to move ALL the forums to the High School (as they did for a few of them a few years ago) about a 10 minute walk away, and also provide a shuttle bus as they did the last time too. That's assuming that the High School is still available at a price -- and if it is, talk one of the major vendors into sponsoring it. (Got to be cheaper than hiring some young models to walk around in bathrobes!) 73 - Original Message - From: George Huling [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dx-chat@njdxa.org Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 2:18 PM Subject: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Forums Locations Ron, The movement of the forums to the Crown Plaza was the best thing to happen this year. I hope the DX forum will join the Contest and Antenna forum next year. It was great to relax in comfort without distractions, so able to enjoy and learn more from the programs.. The contest forum looked around 300 to me, so I sure don't think attendance was hurt. The Contest Dinner that followed was great well worth the trip up from Texas. Why do you want to force me to the hot, old HARA Arena. I might not come back if that is my only choice. But if DX/Contest/Antennas are downtown I be there. 73, George, K5GH Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
RE: [DX-CHAT] Free pubs
Virtually any library will take such mags as donations try locally first then universities 73 Charles Harpole [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
