For the past three years, along with Dan Malesky, N3PDH, I’ve
attended North America’s largest amateur radio convention and trade show,
“Hamvention,” sponsored by the Dayton (Ohio) Amateur Radio Association.
Each year, between 25,000 and 30,000 radio buffs from around the U.S., Canada
and several other countries descend upon the unassuming western Ohio village
of Trotwood and proceed to wreak all sorts of radio-frequency havoc. (At
the end of the weekend, many of them just reek.)
If you missed the first part, well, trust us, this won't make any sense without going back and reading it.
Now that I think of it, it makes bloody little sense no matter what.
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Day 2
Friday, May 16, 2003
West Lancaster, Ohio
to
Hamvention, Hara Arena, Trotwood, Ohio
7 a.m. (approximate): After a rousing breakfast at Waffle House, where for the 45,218th time I explain to N3PDH what the hell a "grit" is, and how you're supposed to eat them (I like mine with butter and syrup, but some people prefer salt and gravy), we belch our way from the motel to the Hamvention, listening to Dusty Rhodes on the country's best damned oldies station, WSAI (1530) Cincinnati. Pity it's owned by Clear Channel.
It's just a little after 8 a.m. on the first day of the 2003 Hamvention, and we pause on the midway to take in the sights, the sounds, and the smells.
Especially the smells ... mildewed operator's manuals ... french-fried electronics equipment ... guys with poor personal grooming habits who have been cooped up on long car trips ... the over-flowing commodes at lovingly-maintained Hara Arena ...
Clearly, N3PDH is a little overwhelmed by it all.
And here it is ... the main exhibit hall at Hara Arena (motto: "You'll come for the radios, you'll stay for the dysentery"). Opened in 1964 at a cost believed to be more than tens of dozens of dollars, the Hara Arena is home to indoor football, minor-league and college hockey and basketball, trade shows, and, rumors have it, Ohio's largest roach motel (450 rooms, cable TV, all major credit cards accepted).
This is just a tiny portion of the indoor exhibit space at Hara Arena. According to the Hara's publicity materials, "The Hara Complex covers 165,000 square feet and consists of a main arena, four exhibition halls, a conference center, a pub, an on-site golf course and is surrounded by over 20 acres of onsite parking."
Most of the additional space is connected by a rabbit warren of crooked hallways and cockeyed stairwells. If the David L. Lawrence Convention Center mated with Eastland Mall and the Butler County Farm Show, the Hara Arena would be the offspring. As long as the offspring was then subjected to regular strafing runs and earhquakes.
Not shown here: the flies swarming in the men's rooms (some of the insects have larger wingspans than the Wright Brothers' original airplane, built nearby) or the 15 feet of mud in the Convenient Nearby Parking Lots.
The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce pays the National Weather Service to make sure it rains either just before or during Hamvention week. This is true, I swear. If it doesn't rain, they have to truck in the mud from Indiana.
An antenna vendor shows off one of his erections.
"Fuggpecker Airlines": The proud bird with the droopy tail. (A subsidiary of BassAckwards Industries.)
N3PDH tries out one of his newest purchases. "It worked the last time I tried it," the seller said. Yeah ... right up until the point that he dropped it into the bathtub with his (late) wife.
Remember: Don't ask the vendors for refunds, because a punch in the mouth often offends. Dan is seated in my late, great Mercury, not to be confused with the present (as of March 2004) Mercury. Gosh, I miss that car. The freedom of being able to hit potholes at 90 miles per hour ... the ability to merge into traffic without giving a fig if the other guys hit me ... excuse me, I'm getting all teary-eyed.
Man does not live by ham radio alone. He also needs baseball and beer. As the exhibits close Friday evening, we retire to our motel room to blast away the top layer of crud and change clothes, and then we head to Downtown Dayton to see the minor-league Dayton Dragons.
They play at a lovely ballpark called "Fifth-Third Field," which is one of the dumbest names for a baseball field I've ever heard. In fairness, it's named for the corporate sponsor, the Fifth-Third Bank.
And that's one of the dumbest names for a bank I've ever heard.
After having every manner and size of refreshment spilled on us by small urchins who spend most of nine innings running back and forth in front of us, we learn that Friday nights are "Bring Your Hyperactive Child Night" at Fifth-Third Field. Or maybe I'm just getting cranky.
And thus, to bed, to await our final day in Dayton.
Until our next installment, here's a list of "Famous Daytonians." Note that they all appear to be dead. Well, in any event, they're buried, so I sure hope they're dead.
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