[CQ-Contest] Dayton Hamvention

[ac0w at charter.net]

Overall an excellent job by DARA in getting things functional in a new
location. As with anything you can always find things that can be
improved. DARA fixed things they could as they came up while other
things will have to wait until next year.
The mud in the flea market, there are some simple solutions to that.
The mud in the parking area a little more challenging but still
possible to get a lot of it under control.
Some of the changes may require investment by the fair board. How much
money the fair board is willing to invest depends on what type of
economic impact we have on the area. I mentioned this as XYL and I
stopped at a local restaurant Saturday afternoon and visited with the
manager. We talked about the Hamvention a little. He indicated a lot
of local business were really disappointed in how few hams stopped in
their business when the community tried to roll out the red carpet for
us.
This particular person use to be manager at some restaurant by Hara
and said they were always full of hams during Hamvention so he was
surprised to hardly seen any. I can come up with a couple of reasons
for not hitting the local restaurants, such as all the good food
choices at Hamvention and it not being as easy to run out to the local
restaurant as it was at Hara. Another is the new location my focus was
just learning and figuring out how to get there.
Bottom line is next year lets try to leave a few greenbacks with the
local business as it will make DARA's job easier in getting some
changes made they may want. I know next year I will do a better job of
trying to hit some of the local businesses.
Last comment, all the 600 plus volunteers were great. XYL, myself and
many of the attendees that I saw tried to thank the volunteers
whenever possible. Just like to publicly thank the volunteers for
everything they did in helping making this an enjoyable event and I
hope to see many of them again next year.
73BillAC0W

 Message: 3
 Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 08:02:46 -0500 (CDT)
 From: Ron Notarius W3WN 
 To: cq-contest at contesting.com
 Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Dayton flea market mud
 Message-ID:

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 The rain, and the resulting issues with mud, were unfortunate and
disappointing.

 But let's keep things in perspective. This was the first time that
DARA used this venue for Hamvention. It was too much to hope for that
everything would work out perfectly, and in two aspects -- the traffic
on Friday, and this -- they didn't.

 The traffic issue was resolved. I've learned that the problem was
that certain officials would not agree to making the main 2 lane road
in one way for the morning on Friday; that changed on Saturday,
alleviating the issue. 

 The flea market issue won't be so easy to solve. Personally, I think
they would have been better off putting the spaces, or at least many
of them, around the track, not in the infield -- that would have
permitted vehicles to use the track for access, which meant that when
the rains came, vehicles would be on the hard surface, not chewing up
the mud. There are other alternatives as well.

 It was unfortunate, but I don't believe it's fair to start writing
off Hamvention in the future because they didn't score a perfect 10 on
their first year in Xenia.

 Now, that said, if DARA doesn't learn from this year and make
adjustments, I'd have a different opinion next year. Let's give them a
chance, first.

 73, ron w3wn

 On 05/23/17, Jeff AC0C wrote:

 What has historically set Dayton apart from the rest of the big
hamfests is that monster sized flea market. So the decision of the
organizers to put it in the center of a dirt horse track on grass
seems like a big gamble that there would be no serious rain.
Unfortunately this year they won the prize for a lot of rain on that
weekend. And that rain turned the race track and everything inside
into a massive mud mess.

 Hope the organizers find some solution to that problem. Because the
persistent mud makes the flea market a pretty unpleasant experience.
Makes me wonder how many guys come to Dayton primarily to poke around
in the market ? and how many will be back if it?s going to be the mud
mess it was this year.

 73/jeff/ac0c
 www.ac0c.com
 alpha-charlie-zero-charlie

 __

 Message: 5
 Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 09:34:59 -0400
 From: cqtestk4xs at aol.com
 To: cq-contest at contesting.com
 Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Dayton flea market mud
 Message-ID: 
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

 The flea market issue won't be so easy to solve. Personally, I think
they would have been better off putting the spaces, or at least many
of them, around the track, not in the infield -- that would have
permitted vehicles to use the track for access, which meant that when
the rains came, vehicles would be on the hard surface, not chewing up
the mud. There are other alternatives as well.

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 I talked to several members of the Dayton Club about doing that. I
was told they can't as the track is used daily by the horses. Sigh!

 Bill K4XS