Hamcation!

Yeah, we went camping at Hamcation again this year, and it was a good time except that I forgot to bring my sleeping bag and pillow. This year, we started a day early and drove over on Thursday about noon and checked-in after a quick side trip to Skycraft. Arriving at Hamcation early this year was pretty nice, but we had a little pressure getting the campsite set up due to impending storms which, fortunately, never materialized. Compared to last year, the temperature was warmer and it was a great time for all of us (KI4OFU (me), KG4YNI, KI4EFN, AF1RE, KI4OFV (my wife)). I didn't find any cheap Soekris SBCs this year, dang it all, but I did pick up a few goodies. The biggest was a new ICOM IC-2820H with the D-Star/GPS board. This is a beautiful radio, and now I get to learn all about how D-Star works. I also picked up a TRSB for my Buddipole, as well as the Rotating Arm Kit. Other miscellaneous goodies from here and there filled out the annual shopping spree, and it was a lot of fun. Let me take a minute to tell you how much I like ICOM. Not necessarily the radios, though I do adore my IC-7000 and I think the same will be true for this IC-2820H pretty soon, but the company itself. I have a young son, 2.5 years old, and the comic books that ICOM publishes are a great way for me to read to my son about amateur radio and get him interested in it. I know it's smart business for them to appeal to a younger generation for the future of the hobby and consequently future hardware sales for them, but they stand out because they are doing that and I don't see a hint of that kind of youth-oriented material from either Yaesu or Kenwood. Go ICOM! Our club had a swap table set up again this year with tons of junk on it, both donated to the club and also consigned by club members. I would say that about 1/2 of it was sold and the other 1/2 given to other vendors on Sunday afternoon because we didn't want to haul any of it back to Lakeland. Either way, it was good revenue for the club. I think that when Hamcation 2009 comes around, we will probably still camp but might do it in the travel trailer rather than in the tent. Also, staying on Saturday night, which we didn't do in 2007, was not optimal this year since by mid-morning on Sunday most of the vendors were packing up and getting ready for the trip home. Yeah, I think that next year we may pack up camp when we get up on Saturday morning and then make one final good day of it before heading home. We'll see.