{"id":19178,"date":"2016-05-25T10:03:23","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T14:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=19178"},"modified":"2016-05-27T16:48:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T20:48:06","slug":"one-week-of-hamvention-air-force-museum-wright-brothers-and-national-parks-on-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/one-week-of-hamvention-air-force-museum-wright-brothers-and-national-parks-on-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"One week of Hamvention, Air Force Museum, Wright Brothers and National Parks On The Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC_4449\"<\/a>I returned home last night\u00a0from my week-log\u00a0Dayton Hamvention<\/a>\u00a0trip around 8:30 PM.<\/p>\n

The Hamvention actually ended at 1:00 PM on Sunday, May 22, but my buddy Eric McFadden (WD8RIF), his son Miles (KD8KNC) and I stayed Sunday night in Dayton, and Monday night at Eric’s home in Athens, Ohio.<\/p>\n

After packing up our Hamvention booth (for Ears To Our World<\/a>) on Sunday, we made our way to the nearby\u00a0National Museum of the USAF<\/a>–the largest\u00a0aviation museum in the world. We visit the museum every year–and every year I discover something new.<\/p>\n

\"BC-348-B29\"<\/a>

This BC-348 can be found in one of the museum’s B-29 displays.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"DSC_4443\"<\/a> \"DSC_4455\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In June, the Air Force museum is actually opening a fourth\u00a0building which will house an additional\u00a070 aircraft in four new galleries.<\/p>\n

If you’re an aviation buff–trust me<\/em>–the\u00a0\u00a0National Museum of the USAF<\/a>\u00a0is worth a pilgrimage to Dayton, Ohio.<\/p>\n

NPOTA activations<\/h1>\n

Monday morning, Eric, Miles and I packed up, ran a few errands on Wright Patterson Air Force Base<\/a>, then made our way to our first National Parks On The Air<\/a> activation:\u00a0the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park<\/a> (HP11) and North Country National Scenic Trail<\/a> (TR04) “two-fer” at Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center in Dayton, Ohio.<\/p>\n

Eric worked CW on 20 meters and I worked SSB on 40 meters using the LNR Precision LD-11<\/a>\u00a0transceiver (which I’m currently reviewing) and my recently-purchased Hardened Power Systems QRP Ranger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For all of my Monday NPOTA activations, I used the EFT Trail Friendly<\/a>\u00a0antenna I purchased at the Hamvention:<\/p>\n

\"EFT-Trail-Friendly-Antenna-QRP\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The EFT Trail Friendly Antenna made set-up a breeze: simply throw a line into a tree, hang the end of the antenna, then hook up the other end to the feedline\/transceiver. No antenna tuner is needed for 40, 20 or 10 meters once the antenna is tuned for resonance. It packs up into a small bundle that easily fits in my radio go-kit (see photo above).<\/p>\n

The LD-11\/QRP Ranger\/EFT antenna combo worked amazingly<\/em> well and made for very quick deployment.<\/p>\n

\"LNR-LD-11<\/a>

I can easily fit the LD-11 transceiver and QRP Ranger on a foldable metal chair (my make-shift field table!).<\/p><\/div>\n

My buddy Eric, I should mention, is typically on the leaderboard for NPOTA<\/a> as he’s an avid QRP field operator.<\/p>\n

\"WD8RIF-20M-Vertical-NPOTA\"<\/a>

Eric (WD8RIF) operating NPOTA with his field-portable vertical HF antenna.<\/p><\/div>\n

You can follow Eric’s\u00a0activations on QRZ.com<\/a> or his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Eric's<\/a>

Eric’s field-portable HF vertical packs up into this small canvas bag.<\/p><\/div>\n

We had a tight NPOTA activation schedule to meet Monday, but after packing up from our first sites, we took 30 minutes to stop by the\u00a0Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center and The Wright Cycle Co. museum<\/a> in downtown Dayton.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_20160523_135344026\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well worth the short visit! Next year, I’ll plan to revisit both museums when I have more time.<\/p>\n

Next, we made our way to the second scheduled NPOTA activation site: the\u00a0Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument<\/a> (MN18).<\/p>\n

\"NPOTA-QRP-LD-11-QRP-Ranger\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite not having my antenna very far off the ground (my antenna line fell down one branch in the process of hanging) I still managed to work a pile-up of stations from Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan and Indiana. After Eric and I racked\u00a0up a number\u00a0of QSOs, we packed up our site in haste<\/em>\u00a0and made our way to the final activation of the day: the\u00a0Hopewell Culture National Historical Park<\/a> (HP15). We arrived as the Park Ranger was getting in his car to leave for the day!<\/p>\n

At Hopewell, I managed to deploy the EFT antenna much<\/em> higher off the ground. I worked a small pile up of stations from all over the region which, to my surprise, included two radio friends (Ed and Eileen) in Franklin, NC. Eric also worked blogging buddy John Harper, AE5X<\/a>\u00a0on 20 meters CW (got your message, John!).<\/p>\n

\"NPOTA-QRP-LD-11-QRP-Ranger-Hopewell\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All in all, it was a fantastic day to be outdoors and on the air.<\/p>\n

Of course, a side benefit of doing National Parks On The Air activations is that you get to check out all of these amazing park sites.<\/p>\n

Without a doubt, this was one fun-filled and radio-centric Hamvention week! It couldn’t have been better.<\/p>\n

\"NPOTA<\/a>

Part of my log sheet for NPOTA HP11 and TRO4 “Two-Fer” activations. Not bad for such a tight schedule!<\/p><\/div>\n

Thank you<\/h1>\n

Many thanks to my friends\u00a0Eric (WD8RIF)<\/strong>, Miles (KD8KNC)<\/strong>, Mike (K8RAT)<\/strong> and Christine (KM4PDS)<\/strong> for volunteering to manage our Hamvention booth for Ears To Our World<\/a>. It was a record year for collecting donations. Many thanks to all of you for the support!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d also like to thank\u00a0the SWLing Post<\/em> readers<\/strong> who stopped by to visit our new location in the Silver Arena–it was great seeing everyone!<\/p>\n

Now that I’m back home, I essentially have one week of emails and comments in my backlog to sort\u00a0before hitting the road again rather soon. I appreciate your patience as I catch up. If you don’t hear back from me soon, it’s okay to give me a nudge! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I returned home last night\u00a0from my week-log\u00a0Dayton Hamvention\u00a0trip around 8:30 PM. The Hamvention actually ended at 1:00 PM on Sunday, May 22, but my buddy Eric McFadden (WD8RIF), his son Miles (KD8KNC) and I stayed Sunday night in Dayton, and Monday night at Eric’s home in Athens, Ohio. After packing up our Hamvention booth (for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3607,8,545,836,3,3196,5099,26,43],"tags":[5063,5106,5104,1142,5098,1150,5097,5107,5101,5100,5102,4920,5030,5103,5089,5105,5088,1303,5096,2888],"class_list":["post-19178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antennas","category-articles","category-ham-radio","category-new-products","category-news","category-portable-radio","category-qrp","category-radios","category-shortwave-radio","tag-2016-dayton-hamvention","tag-charles-young-buffalo-soldiers-national-monument","tag-dayton-aviation-heritage-national-historical-park","tag-dayton-hamvention","tag-eft-trail-friendly-antenna","tag-hamvention","tag-hardened-power-systems","tag-hopewell-culture-national-historical-park","tag-k8rat","tag-kd8knc","tag-km4pds","tag-ld-11","tag-lnr-precision-ld-11","tag-national-museum-of-the-usaf","tag-national-parks-on-the-air","tag-north-country-national-scenic-trail","tag-npota","tag-qrp","tag-qrp-ranger","tag-wd8rif"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-4Zk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18895,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/national-parks-on-the-air-npota-activations-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":19178,"position":0},"title":"National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) activations today","author":"Thomas","date":"May 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"En route to the 2016 Dayton Hamvention, I'm doing a few National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) activations with my my buddy, Eric (WD8RIF). Eric is currently the number one activator in the state of Ohio. NPOTA is a great excuse to get outdoors and play radio. For me, it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ham Radio"","block_context":{"text":"Ham Radio","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/ham-radio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_20160519_105823050_HDR","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_20160519_105823050_HDR.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9649,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/last-day-of-the-2014-hamvention\/","url_meta":{"origin":19178,"position":1},"title":"Last day of the 2014 Hamvention","author":"Thomas","date":"May 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Today is the the final day of the 2014 Dayton Hamvention. For exhibitors, it's the slowest day of the weekend (Saturday is the busiest). My voice is hoarse from speaking with so many people--it's been great! Many thanks to the SWLing Post readers who stopped\u00a0by our booth to talk radio.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Current Events"","block_context":{"text":"Current Events","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/current-events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Morning on Wright Patterson Air Force Base","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/photo-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":43365,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/massive-photo-galleries-of-the-dayton-hamvention\/","url_meta":{"origin":19178,"position":2},"title":"Massive photo galleries of the Dayton Hamvention","author":"Thomas","date":"May 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first year I've missed the Dayton Hamvention since 2009. As I mentioned in a previous post--besides hanging with my friends--I really enjoy browsing the flea market and inside exhibits looking for deals and cool innovations. In 2016, I took loads of photos of both the Hamvention Flea\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ham Radio"","block_context":{"text":"Ham Radio","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/ham-radio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-Hamvention-Flea-Market-28-of-165.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-Hamvention-Flea-Market-28-of-165.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-Hamvention-Flea-Market-28-of-165.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-Hamvention-Flea-Market-28-of-165.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":25629,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/destination-2017-hamvention-and-the-fdim-four-days-in-may-conference\/","url_meta":{"origin":19178,"position":3},"title":"Destination: 2017 Hamvention and the FDIM (Four Days In May) conference","author":"Thomas","date":"May 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"As I mentioned in a previous post, I'll be attending and hosting a booth for ETOW at the 2017 Hamvention this week. 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