Dayton Hamvention 2008!
The Skinny
Well it looks like this year I’ll again be going with my father, Shanon, KA8SPW, to Dayton, OH to pay my yearly homage to the greatest hobby ever. From what’s coming down the pipeline we’ll also be bringing along Tom, N8LBT. Because of constraints, the baby shower for Alex, and a bachelor party for another Ham, we’ll only be going down for the one day on Friday.
We’ll be shipping off at around 3:30am and arriving back around 10:00pm. As always, my primary focus will be the flea market, while my father will be aiming hard for his Extra class ticket.
Mother Nature
The models are not cooperating very well for Friday. Right now for Thursday there is a nice swath of Gulf moisture that is going to surge up and hopefully be out of the area by the time we make it down. If it does then we’ll be set for a wet start but dry day with highs closing in on 70F. So far it’s looking like a picture perfect day for this year.
For those interested, the longer range models are showing nice weather again for Saturday with a chance of rain showing its ugly head on Sunday. I’ll post again with an update as the models get closer to Friday.
Dayton-Cam
This year as promised I’ll have my EVDO connection and I will be able to stream live during the trip. Due to time constraints this will again be a hodge-podge of technologies and an effort to see just how much I can get setup before we go. The Red Wing playoffs are certainly putting a damper on my efforts but I’ll certainly not sell them out short when we’re this close to the Finals.
At the very least I’ll again be putting up pictures every 30 seconds and at the very most have streaming audio and video. I’m also going to work on setting up an APRS module on this site you can track and watch at the same time. I’ll have IM set up along with IRC so there will be many ways to communicate.
Last year we only transmitted while we were in the truck but this year I’ll have a computer capable of being on for more than 2 hours so we’ll see if I can stand lugging it around while I go out in the flea market.
Hamvention 2.0
And because if I didn’t those at my work would probably harp on me, not that posting pictures and comments about uber-geek things wouldn’t bring that on anyway, I’ll be live-blogging the entire event.
I’ll be using a combination of Twitter, Tumblr, and the new BrightKite service to try and give you all a good view of just what it’s like out there. I’ll post more details and links as I set them up and get them ready this Wednesday and Thursday.
Need Something?
We’ll be going down with a big empty truck this year so if there’s anything that you might need, be it geeky LEDs or other electronic bits, to vintage radio gear, to computer parts, to just about anything you think you might find in a basement of some old hack, just let me know and I’ll keep my eyes out.
Because I’ll also be taking pictures of things I think are cool, if you do see something you like please feel free to let me know and if I have the means I’ll pick it up for you. If it’s small, then no big deal, just pay me back. If it’s large, and I mean large enough to drag the van on the way home, then I might tack on a little for the gas it’d use to haul it… though I don’t think anyone who reads this is going to ask for anything that big.
w00t!
So there it is, despite the tight schedule leading up to and following the trip, we’ll be going and waaay more connected than we have ever been. Feel free to post about it and link to the Hamvention 2008 page that I’ve created to help collect the information.
If you have any questions or comments, just post them here or hit me up through the various channels of communication that I use.
I will be at the Wayne County RACES meeting tomorrow and should be monitoring the 147.160 repeater for most of the week after work hours.