Hamvention Forums

Greetings from the 2009 Hamvention Forums Committee!

Please see the forum schedule below as well as detailed information on each forum, grouped by day in the PDF documents below. Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download) is required to view these documents.

Forum Information Links:
2009 Hamvention Forum Schedule
Forum Details - Friday
Forum Details - Saturday
Forum Details - Sunday

2009 Dayton Hamvention Forums - A Great Line-up for 2009

Hamvention is proud to bring you another superb line-up of forums for this year’s show. The forums are created and presented by amateur radio operators This is a great chance to meet some of the innovators that continue to push the technological envelope and improve ham radio, and to learn from the people who are finding interesting ways to use amateur radio, and to see how the ARRL and other entities are working hard to protect our spectrum and preserve our hobby from external and internal threats.

Highlights this year include:

Laura Smith, Esq. the FCC Special Counsel for the Spectrum Enforcement Division

Richard Garriott, entrepreneur, programmer, astronaut and ham! He is the man behind Origin Systems and the video game Ultima Online, among others. In October 2008 he became a “space tourist” visiting the International Space Station (on a Soyuz rocket) and participating in numerous ISS to Earth ham radio contacts. Thanks to the ARRL for securing him for the show.

Bob Heil of Heil Sound will present a forum on ham station audio.
Gordon West will be taking the stage on Friday – not sure what he is going to do or say but we can guarantee you will be entertained!
Carole Perry, a professional educator from NY will be presenting her Youth Forum in an expanded time slot and a bigger room. Icom has donated a lot of equipment in support of her efforts and this is a unique opportunity to hear firsthand the amazing things being done by our young hams.

Our theme this year is DREAM: Digital Radio Enabling Amateurs to do More
Our digital forums include: TAPR, SDR, APRS, D-Star, SSTV, RTTY and a new ARRL Forum on Digital Contesting. The Antenna forum promises a session on Digital Antennas, and given our theme we can expect other forums to have lots of digital content.

For the Emergency Communicators we are offering forums from ARES, SATERN and MARS, the Red Cross, and a new forum from the Senior Emergency Manager in the FCC’s relatively new (2 years) Public Communications Outreach & Operations Division in the Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau, entitled “Volunteer Emergency Communicators: Are We Still Needed?”.

That is just a few of the 45 different forums we are offering this year on every topic we could think of and then some! Our thanks and appreciation to the moderators who work long hours putting together these forums, securing speakers, creating slide shows, and then coming all the way to Dayton Ohio to stand up in front of an audience and share their knowledge! The forums staff, moderators, and speakers, like everyone at Hamvention, are volunteers. Make sure you thank them when you get a chance!

Admission is first come - first served. There are no tickets and some of the forums can be standing room only or may be limited for safety.

Chairman:  Todd Collins, N2TUN
Asst. Chair:  Bob Simmons, KD8FHT
Advisor:  Ron Moorefield, W8ILC

Contact us at forums@hamvention.org