Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Handiham World for 21 May 2008

Chris, KG0BP, and Carl, N8NSD, take a few minutes to visit at the Handiham boothWelcome to Handiham World!

Photo: Chris, KG0BP, and Carl, N8NSD, take a few minutes to visit at the Handiham booth during HAMVENTION®.

Last week we were at HAMVENTION®, and with so much time out of the office and on the road, it takes a little time to catch up with all of the usual office duties. I have some photos with captions for you later on. I don't want this particular edition to be all about the hamfest, so in upcoming weeks I'll be sharing some thoughts with you on various aspects of the world's largest amateur radio get-together.

One thing I usually buy at HAMVENTION is a new ARRL Repeater Directory, and this year was no exception. The print edition is a wee bit larger than last year's, and it's sitting here on the desk in front of me just begging for a good look-see. I hope to find even more and better listings of IRLP and EchoLink repeaters this year, and I'm sure ARRL will not disappoint me. It's more important than ever for repeater owners to submit current and accurate information about their repeaters so that travelers can access these machines and use all of their new features. A week or so ago, Matt, KA0PQW, was on the road in Minnesota and managed to stay connected through EchoLink and IRLP to his home repeater. How cool is that?!!

There's plenty of news this week, so we had best get started.