HAMCON 2015 Is THIS Weekennd!

I totally forgot about posting this earlier, but if you're a Ham, and live in SoCal, you probably already know about it.

Also known as the South West Division ARRL Convention, HAMCON  starts Friday September 11th, and runs through Sunday, September 13th.

Friday's schedule is 1300~1800, with the vendor hall open from 1600~2000Saturday's is 0730~1800, and Sunday's is 0800~1500.

Admission at the door is $27, and "extra" patches and pins are $5 each, while supplies last.

HAMCON is on a rotating schedule, and is held at a different venue each year, on a 4 year rotation.

From the HAMCON website:

The ARRL’s annual Southwestern Division Convention rotates yearly from the Los Angeles-Orange County area to a location in Arizona, then to a site in Santa Barbara or Ventura County, and finally to the San Diego area before repeating this four-year cycle

This year it's going to be held at the Torrance Marriott, near the Del Amo Fashion mall.

The first year I was involved it was held on the Queen Mary, and then it was held at the Long Beach World Trade Center, and finally settled in to the Torrance Marriott.

The Queen Mary was fun, but not very practical, as the vendors were in one area, and all the Tech Talks were scattered throughout the ship in various meeting rooms, making it rather inconvenient to attend the talks.

You might have 5 minutes between two talks you wanted to attend, and have to go three decks up or down, and half way fore or aft to get there!

The Trade Center was an extremely nice venue, and I don't remember why it was only there one year; probably cost of the venue, and cost of parking.

Hams are notoriously CHEAP (there, I said it in print!), and will willingly cough up $400 for a new walkie-talkie, $1500 for a new HF rig, or drop $10k on an antenna, tower, rotor, and feedline, and then whine and cry about $8 parking and $6 hot dogs at the venue.

Oh, well.....

I volunteered to help with the table for Pacific Battleship Center and BIARA, so if you're in the area, please drop by and say hi.

All the usual vendors will be there, along with some smaller local ones, and during my break from the BIARA table, I'll be stumbling along drooling over all the new equipment, and saying hello to some of the vendors I know.