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] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts?
First, it was good to see so many of you (even if I didn't always get a chance to say "hi!") at Hamvention this last weekend. It's one of the few events I really look forward to all year. (It was especially nice to finally meet Urb and all three Steve's... Pete W2IRT and many others up at the NJDXA Hospitality Suite... Jim AD1C who was too busy, good for him, at his booth to look up... and on and on...) Having said that, I'm concerned about Hamvention, and those of you who were there should know what I'm talking about. To be brief: Attendance was noticeably down. I can not ever remember seeing the building(s) or the flea market so empty -- on a Friday afternoon or Saturday, not even in all those times of bad weather. Not only did I see many empty booths inside -- but there were many areas formerly occupied by booths that werejust plain not there, and by that I mean no curtains or tables or anything set up. The flea market was easily half empty. I don't ever recall seeingso many empty rows. Many vendors that I've come to count on as regulars, just to say "hi!" were conspicuous by their absence (especially many of the smaller ham vendors and many computer software/parts vendors). And the forums I went to or stuck my head in on, with the exception of the DX forum at first, were no were near filled (and I'm curious as to how the contesting antenna forums that were moved to the Crowne Plaza did) I think I saw less DX calls than ever. A lot of big guns I'd expected to run into were never seen, but more so, some of the delegations seemed to be down. I can't remember the last time I saw so few JA or OH or DL calls around; never ran into any PA's or Eastern EU calls, only a handful of F's and LX's and EA's and ON's. And so on, and so on, but you get the idea. ARRL had printed was giving out 5000 "Passports." All you had to do was walk around the building for about 15 minutes, look for 15 numbers, write them down and turn the form in for a chance at some nice prizes. You'd figure that sometimeSaturday morning they'd all be gone. But the League had piles of them still sitting around at 10 AM on Sunday. Granted, they could have tried a little harder to give them out (I only remember seeing people in League shirts doing so on Friday, I saw none on Saturday) but still... Why? I have my own ideas, but I'm curious as to others. K3AIR I talked about it at length on the drive home, but I know we don't know everything. It just strikes me that Hamvention is (and probably has been for a few years now) slowly disintegrating, bit by bit. I don't think it's really one or two major factors, but a lot of little things that add up -- in other words, not a major blow, but death by a thousand paper cuts. Thoughts? 73, ron wn3vaw
[DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts?
I think I saw less DX calls than ever. A lot of big guns I'd expected to run into were never seen, but more so, some of the delegations seemed to be down. I can't remember the last time I saw so few JA or OH or DL calls around; never ran into any PA's or Eastern EU calls, only a handful of F's and LX's and EA's and ON's. And so on, and so on, but you get the idea. After 11 september2001 it has been a major inconvenience to travel to and within USA. Evene with the low dollar value, also the political climate does not encourage people to go over. Perhaps when you get a new president ,who respects international law and has less double standards, you may see more overseas visitors. These day I expect more will go to Hamradio in Friedrichshafen, which also has the benefit of some very nice surroundings and modern convention facilities. Just my 2 cents after hearing people over here talking. 73 Rag LA5HE
Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts?
Rag, get a life. How our president conducts the foreign affairs of our nation is no one's business but ours, and these comments are totally inappropriate for this forum. Mike, W5UC At 06:57 PM 5/23/2005 +0200, you wrote: Perhaps when you get a new president ,who respects international law and has less double standards, you may see more overseas visitors.
Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts?
This is a copy of Rag's famous anti-American, anti-Jewish post, just three days after the 9/11 attack: A sober approach would be to analyse what USA has donewrong in order to create enough hatred so some peopleare willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. With anignorant president you need some wise and knowledgablepeople in the government, who can review your foreignpolicy and come up with some much needed changes.Thelack of understanding the world outside USA and tosome extent Western-Europe has led USA to make someserious mistakes. Not knowing who committed thehorrible terror attack, for the sake of argument letme just make an example: It does not take a rocketscientist to understand that the lack of support tothe Palestinians struggle for freedom andselfdetermination is not winning friends in the Arabworld while at the same time the oppressers arereceiving several billion in "aid" every year .You may not believe it, but in many places around inthe world, some of us have had to stress that we arenot Americans in order to be treated politely !With respect and sorrow73 Rag LA5HE
Re: [DX-CHAT] Hamvention: Death By Paper Cuts?
At 06:33 PM 5/23/2005 +, you wrote: Flea markets why wait for a flea market when sales go fast on the internet. Forums read about this content the next day after it happens or is released... on the internet. New products sell it on ur web site, fast. This appears to be 'dead on. There are those rare items that I look for at a Hamfest, But like many I am sure, when a need comes to mind, it's off to e-bay. I will go to Hamcom in Dallas because it is only a 4 hour drive. I hope to sell a couple of items that were taken to Dayton by a good friend but did not sell, and I will be looking for a killer bargain on a FT-920(yes, I have already been watching e-bay), BUT the thing I am primarily looking for is the opportunity to visit with old as well as new friends. I believe the small, close Hamfests will survive, but the large ones may be doomed for the reasons Charles has outlined. Too much cost (gasoline)for too little benefit. 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
