Experiences From The ARRL Centennial Convention In Hartford, CT

The ARRL has been celebrating its 100th year this year with a variety of events. One of the biggest was the ARRL Centennial Convention in Hartford, CT this month. Anita and I were fortunate to be able to attend this excellent event and I wanted to share some of our experiences from Hartford with our readers. We began our Centennial Convention experience by attending the Contest University session that was held on the first day. No matter how many times we attend this excellent training day, we always learn some new things and techniques that we can practice in our contesting efforts.

One of the key things to do at the Convention was the excellent Vendor display arena. In addition to an all-out booth run by ARRL, many of the major radio and equipment vendors were present. Beyond the Dayton Hamvention, this was one of the best vendor displays of this type that we’ve had the pleasure to attend.

The best part, by far, for us were the excellent Forums and Presentations that were part of the convention. The ARRL managed to line up some of the most noted experts in the Amateur Radio Community to speak on a broad variety of topics.

One of the best was Joe Taylor’s (K1JT) excellent presentation on the weak signal digital protocols that he has developed and the software that he has created to enable the Amateur Radio community to make contacts using the Moon, Meteor Scatter, and other means in very marginal probation conditions. You can find out more about Joe’s work in this areas on his Home Page.

Gordon West, WB6NOA gave an excellent presentation on Tropo Ducting Propagation on 2M. Gordon is very knowledgeable on this topic and he is also a very entertaining speaker!

Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ founder of QRZ.com gave an interesting presentation on the history of QRZ.com and what he is doing with some new online logbook and QSO confirmation capabilities on his site.

B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD gave a cool presentation on Lightweight DXpeditioning. Scott has perfected a practical approach to lightweight DXpeditioning and has also contributed much to the use of the Buddipole Antenna System via his work with that system as part of his operations (check out Scott’s excellent book – Buddipole In The Field).

I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about Station Design and Construction as part of the program. You can check out our material on this topic via the overview post here or download a copy of the presentation that we gave in CT.

There we several fun dinners and keynotes through the event. One thing that was very special was the presentation of awards to the ARRL from other Amateur Radio organizations around the world. The picture above shows some of the awards received by the ARRL.

There was also a QSL Card Wall at the event. Can you find the callsign of someone that you’ve worked in the picture above? There are a few rare ones in here.

All in all, the ARRL Centennial Convention was one of the highlights of our Amateur Radio experience to date. Anita and I feel very fortunate to have been part of it.

Fred (AB1OC)