[hpsdr] First report from Dayton

[george byrkit]

Dear all,

Since I travelled less distance than most who were at the TAPR booth at
Dayton, and I'm already home (have been for 2.5 hours now, at 6:30PM EDT in
the US), I'll say a few things.

First, the TAPR forum on Friday at 9:15 AM was well attended.  And the
presentations by Steve Bible, Scotty Cowling, Phil Harman and Bruce Perens
was very well received.  Phil spoke on his 'Griffin' project (not TAPR
related that I know of for funding), which uses the 'chirp' technique to get
the same effect of a very high power beacon from only say 10 watts.  Phil
then stunned us when he showed data of this technique being used on 20m as a
real-time propagation analyzer (NOT predictor)!

The Amsat/TAPR dinner that evening offered a good, collegial gathering after
a long day at the booth.  Saturday saw lots of hams stop at TAPR and take a
look at our open HPSDR project, its hardware and software.  The booth was
ably staffed, and many hams who had this kit who were at Dayton stopped by
for extended periods of time to participate in building community.

Saturday night saw many of us in the booth of to Tom's house (an old friend
of John Ackerman), just north of Dayton, for a more relaxing evening.  We
were joined by Kjell and 5 or 6 of his Norwegian ham friends who were all at
Dayton.

This morning saw somewhat sparser visits by Hamvention visitors to the
booth, but the 'usual suspects' were all there to greet and converse with
whomever showed up.  About Noon the packing was well underway, and about
then John Ackerman left, followed or slightly preceeded by me.  The others
were all packing, giving each other going-away parting wishes, and vowing to
meet to 'do it again next year'.

It was a job well done by the TAPR officers, board, hangers-on and others.
If I tried to list all names, I'd surely leave a few out and accidentally
maybe offend someone, which I would never want to do!  It was good to meet
Phil, with whom I have only spoken previously on Teamspeak or Skype.  It was
good to meet others who post on this list, whether asking questions or often
answering them.

I'm tired and my feet hurt!

73,
George Byrkit, K9TRV