Dayton Hamvention 2024

Important links:
hamvention.org/
/ @darahamvention
I first heard of Dayton Hamvention last year when my Twitter profile started flooding with images on Hamvention 2023. Sometime later I had a similar situation with HamCation in Orlando, Florida and International Exhibition for Radio Amateurs known as HAM RADIO in Friedrichshafen. This year again Dayton Hamvention 2024 is coming near and I delved into the history of Hamvention a bit. Hamvention has been sponsored by Dayton Amateur Radio Association ever since 1952 and is one of the largest gathering of radio amateurs globally.
It has been held at Greene County Fairgrounds and Expo Center since 2017 after closure of the previous venue Hara Arena in 2016. Hamvention 2024 will be held on May 17, 18 and 19, 2024. Dates for the next three years are also available at the website. There is a huge photo album of the venue running into 128 pictures available on the website. Detailed information on how to purchase the tickets are also available there. School students get free tickets and children below 12 years accompanied by a valid ticket holder have free entrance. Detailed travel and local arrangements can be obtained from the Hamvention website.
Another point of interest to me was that it is also the ARRL National Convention with presence of additional ARRL staff. Timing of the program is from 9 am to 5 pm on first two days and 9 am to 1 pm on the last day. Important attractions of the Hamvention are the Flea Market, good number of moderated forums on each day, and free license exams in addition to the great opportunity to connect with the global ham radio community. Links to various study material has also been given for those wishing to appear for the exams. List of 6m, 2m, 1.25m and 70cm repeaters in the area are also available so that hams can program their radios in advance.
Hamvention 2023 was attended by nearly thirtyfour thousand people, this year may be there will be more. Learned that events in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to Covid 19. The three important awards given last year were Amateur Radio Club of the Year, Technical Achievement Award and Amateur of the Year 2023. For those of us who are not lucky enough to attend Hamvention 2024, there are six live streaming programs of the forums awaiting you. Just go to the DARA Hamvention UA-cam channel, subscribe and press the "Notify me" link and wait for the forum to start!
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