The Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA) started the event in 1952 with 600 in attendance, and moved to HARA Arena in 1964, where attendance climbed to near 30 thousand.

Now they have moved to the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, Ohio. What a fantastic venue and what a great job by DARA in getting this huge event up and running.

Hams to Japan – #H2JA

We’re really excited to hold the Hams to Japan Sweepstakes and wanted to incorporate it into the mix at the Hamvention® booth this year.  A kiosk was placed at the from of our booth, allowing visitors to sign up while at Hamvention®. We have had great participation so far and only expect more until our final drawing. The grand prize drawing, a trip for two to  2017 Tokyo Hamfair or an IC-7300, will announce the second week of July.

Excitement is building and we look forward to sending a ham on a dream vacation to the largest amateur radio event in the world. Enter each Tuesday for a chance to win an Icom radio or the grand prize! Follow our Facebook or Twitter feed for more information.

New Booth

One benefit of coming back to the same place year after year is you know what to expect. Plus, your staff and procedures run like clockwork as you’ve done it so many times before. Not so this year.

It was a new venue, which called for a new booth! We were able to redesign our booth and in the process allow for greater access to the equipment displays, more room for conversations between hams and our staff members. Hats off to our team that made it all work.

New Rigs

“New” was definitely the theme this year, so of course we had to showcase some new rigs. The big attraction was the IC-7610. It has not yet been approved by the FCC, but we expect it to be available this Fall. It’s the next step in the evolution of our direct sampling transceivers, following the success of the IC-7300. You can see the preliminary information on our website and Adam Farson, VA7OJ, has a quick review on his website.

We also brought our new entry level D-STAR mobile ID-4100, and all our other great rigs so attendees could see first hand the quality of our equipment and operate them.

Contest University

We have been a long-time sponsor of Tim Duffy’s Contest University. If you have not yet attended, I highly recommend it. It’s extremely well organized and the information that is shared can really boost your contest scores.

We also provide live streaming video of several of the sessions. You can find the full list on YouTube at Contest University 2017. One of my favorites was the presentation given by Rob Sherwood, NC0B, titled Disruptive Technologies, How They Change Our Hobby.

In this presentation he compares traditional superheterodyne receivers with direct sampling receivers. He particularly notes that this is one of the disruptive technologies that he is seeing today and notes that the IC-7300 has initiated a “tectonic shift” in the technology used in amateur radio. You heard it on this blog first, in my post titled “IC-7300 — A Game Changer.”

Youth Forum

One thing that did not change this year was the Youth Forum. In fact, Carole Perry, WB2MGP, celebrated 30 years of hosting the event. Congratulations Carole!

The 2017 Hamvention® Youth Forum lineup was, as always, fantastic. Here’s the list of presentations:

• Lucas Schroeder, W6LDS (15) “The SharkRF openSPOT”
• Carissa Ferguson, KJ4EZA(17) “Robotics and Ham Radio”
• Dakota Krzysik, KE8CVK(17) “Activations: Islands, Lighthouses, and Ships”
• Grace Lea, KM4TXT(9) “Solar Power Mania”
• Jerome Dinakar, KE0BBQ(16) “Tribute to Ellie Van Winkle”
• Evan Markowitz, KD2IZW(18) “Balloon Based Repeater for Emergency Applications”
• Ruth Willet, KM4LAO(18) “Plugging into Your Valuable Club Resources”
• Chris Brault, KD8YVJ(14) “Getting Started with SDR”
• Dhruv Rebba, KC9ZJX(13) “Community Services with Ham Radio Communications”

Ham Nation 300th Episode

Bob Heil’s Ham Nation produced their 300th episode “On Location From Hamvention®.” We are a proud sponsor and it was fabulous to be on the show.

Highlights — Too Many to Cover

There were a ton of highlights during the Hamvention®,  too may to cover in a brief blog post. In summary, the overall event went fantastic. It was indeed time for change and it went extremely well. Congratulations to DARA and all the Hamvention® volunteers that made it happen.

We will be back! I guess some things don’t change…

73,

Ray Novak, N9JA
Senior Sales Manager
Lifetime Amateur Radio Enthusiast

And, it doesn’t stop there:

• Real-Time Spectrum Scope
• Audio Scope
• Large Touch Screen Color TFT LCD
• Multi-dial Knob for Intuitive Menu Selection
• Built-in Automatic Antenna Tuner

Introduced at the Tokyo JARL Hamfair 2015, it’s now ready for your ham shack.

RF Direct Sampling System

We’ve deployed a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) along with a digital signal processor (DSP) to essentially replace a traditional superheterodyne receiving system. In the bargain, we’ve eliminated the physical mixer.

This is the technology used in software defined radios (SDRs). Based on our research, it’s a first in an amateur radio transceiver among major amateur radio manufacturers. This approach provides class leading phase noise characteristics in both receiving and transmitting — that makes for quieter QSOs and better DX.

Real-Time Spectrum Scope

That RF Direct Sampling System also provides the IC-7300 with a spectrum scope with adjustable span width from 5 kHz to 1 MHz, waterfall display, 1 dot resolution, reference level adjustment from -20 dB to +20 dB, average and maximum hold indications, and touch screen operation.

Our innovative approach to every aspect of the 7300’s design means that a serious spectrum scope is no longer limited to expensive high-level transceivers. You can now add it to your ham shack and do so without breaking the bank.

It’s exactly what you need to see both the DX and the pile-up along with who’s responding and where your signal should be to help the DX find you. Touch the screen around the signal of interest and it’s magnified. A second touch moves the operating frequency, allowing you to quickly zero in on the signal.

The spectrum scope also provides a high-resolution waterfall function. This function clearly shows the incoming signals as they change over time, allowing you to detect weak signals and tune to them.

Audio Scope

Not only can you examine incoming signals through the real-time spectrum scope, you can also examine the signal’s audio characteristics through the audio scope function.

This allows seeing the impact of filter width, notch filter, and keying waveform. Plus, you can not only examine incoming signals but also your transmitted signal. Perfect for ensuring that you’re using just the right amount of microphone gain and compression.

Large Touch Screen Color TFT LCD

The spectrum scope, audio scope, operational readouts including frequency, along with menus all display on a 4.3 inch Color TFT LCD display. It’s like working with your smart phone in your ham shack. You see what’s happening and can respond instantly with a touch of your finger.

Multi-dial Knob for Intuitive Menu Selection

Touch screen simplicity wasn’t enough for our design engineers. They made the menus even more accessible and intuitive through the use of a multi-dial knob. Push the knob and menu items appear on the display. Select an item via the touch screen and use the knob to adjust the levels. It takes working with multiple menus to a new level of simplicity.

Built-in Automatic Antenna Tuner

The compact chassis of this superb transceiver is just begging to be put into use for field operation. The built-in automatic antenna tuner helps with matching whatever antenna you’ve got to the rig for get-on-the-air capability. Of course, the tuner also works with whatever antenna you’re able to put up at home.

And There’s More

You’d expect all this in high-level transceivers, but there’s so much more:

• 15 discrete band-pass filters
• SD card slot – save audio, screen captures, memories
• USB for rig control and audio
• 101 memory channels
• Fully featured CW and RTTY keyers (and RTTY decode)
• Voice memory function
• Digital noise reduction
• 100 watts output from 160 to 6 meters
• SSB, CW, RTTY, AM, and FM

There’s so much more that we can’t possibly cover it in this short blog post. But we’ve gone one better. You can find a full listing of all the features and specifications, including videos, at IC-7300 – The Innovative HF Transceiver with High Performance Real-Time Spectrum Scope.

Is It All About Features?

No, it’s not all about features. But we sure like to show them off. After all, when you’re a communications powerhouse with lots of superb engineers and designers, it’s what you do.

But it’s also about fun and the pure enjoyment of amateur radio. That’s what the IC-7300 offers. Top level technology and innovation, for sure. But also having a great time with a cool radio working DX or rag chewing. It will get it done for you and provide hours of enjoyable operating.

There’s one in stock now at your local dealer. Make sure you get yours.