Back from Hamvention

Ladies and Gentlemen: Just got back from Dayton. The forum on Friday went super and as was the case last year, it was recorded and will be available sometime this year (unknown exact date). When I see it, I will post the link on group io.

I don’t know the numbers yet but it appeared (only a feel) that Hamvention was very well attended—very crowded particularly on Friday and Saturday as one might expect.

Couple things worthy of mentioning. We now have a #2 and a #3 corporate sponsorship! Hooray!..As most of you know, Ray from ICOM was #1 stepping into that premier roll after last year’s Hamvention. This year, we received corporate commitments from Eric Schwartz, President of Elecraft (thank you Eric), and Lori/Matt from FlexRadio. We are working on obtaining their logos and will soon have these two new amazing companies in our hobby on the front page of our webpage. We want to thank both of these organization and of course ICOM for putting their trust in our ability to reach out and engage many DX throughout the world.

Another goodnews story is that I had the opportunity (they attended the Forum) to meet Vita, W9JOY and her husband George, NQ9N.
Wonderful midwest folks they are….As most of you know, we started last year a country sponsorship…that is if we can find sponsors for countries, the high score within that country entity will be the happy recipient of a beautiful plaque. These are not being fabricated and will be sent out shortly.

So far for 2026, we have the following sponsorships–

1. Brand New All Baltic and Hungary—Vita, W9JOY has sponsored two plaques… The All Baltic Plaque will award the a beautiful plaque to the highest score in Lithuania, Lativa or Latvia. Thank you Vita for your sponsorship.

2. Venezuela—our own Sebastian, KI2D will again sponsor a plaque for high score in Venezuela

3. Brazil- Bob Locher, W9KNI will again sponsor the high score out of Brazil in honor of his good friend, Oms, PY5EG of the Araucaria DX Club.

4. Slovak Republic- our own Marvin, VE3VEE will sponsor again the high score out of the Slovak Republic, thank you Marvin

5. A new one…until and unless we find a sponsor, DX Marathon will be sponsoring a plaque for the high score out of JA! We are trying to make a big push to JA operators as they are hugely underrepresented in our wonderful program. If you know a JA, tell them about DX Marathon.

If you wish to sponsor a country, please send me an email at wc3w@dxmarathon.com and so state which country. The cost of sponsorship is US$100 which covers the cost of the plaque plus transportation to the winner.

73 and Good DX’ing Mark WC3W .,.,_