[CQ-Contest] Dayton Hamvention

[N2TK, Tony]

I found the restaurants in downtown Dayton to be quite busy with Hams,
especially those east of the Crowne Plaza on 5th street. And within walking
distance to the Crowne. Quite a good selection of cuisine. Is it the
eateries more towards downtown and Xenia will benefit from the change in
venues? I do miss Barnsider. Buckhorn Tavern was a big letdown last year.

And yes the food offerings were much better at Xenia then Hara, except for
Radar's "Homemade" Ice Cream. First time I can ever remember throwing out
ice cream. It was terrible.

Overall I feel DARA did a wonderful job for the first time at new venue.  

73,
N2TK, Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
ac0w at charter.net
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 7:07 PM
To: 'cq-contest at contesting.com' <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Dayton Hamvention

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:

 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

 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.

 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 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


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