I headed out to the Grandview, MO Hamfest (aka the South Side Amateur Radio Club’s Octoberfest) this morning – about an hour’s drive. It was a smallish hamfest hosted at a middle school. The main floor was in the gymnasium’s basketball court with a spill over section in the adjacent cafeteria. What I noticed most of all was everyone eating… biscuits and gravy with eggs was quite popular. The doors opened at 0900 but I arrived around 1030 and it seemed by this time the hamfest was starting to wind down. Most of the tables were filled and the two big vendors there was the local ham store (Associated Radio) and WB0W. The oddest thing I saw was a gentlemen trying to sell golf clubs. One general criticism (and I’ve seen this at a few hamfests) is not publicizing the forums ahead of time. If you are going to host one or more forums – put the forum name, the subject matter, and start times on the hamfest’s webpage. It may create a larger draw for your event. Also had an eyeball QSO with WE0Z who I have bumped into on APRS a few times. One last comment – while I think it is cool that you connect Oktoberfest with a hamfest, the real Oktoberfest happens in September and only a day or two in October… plus if you call your event Oktoberfest you probably need to have some beer present. I am not sure how sales of beer would be at a middle school on a Saturday morning with a bunch of ham geezers in attendance, but it would be interesting to see… and nothing goes better with biscuits and gravy than a nice beer. Both on my drive there and back I listened to K1G on 20M, a special event station near Boston commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Coast Guard Axillary. On the way there he was working all over Europe and on the way back he was working state-side stations. I was one of many who were able to get him in the log.
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Amateur Radio – a hobby where people talk about their hobby using their hobby.