Friday, March 18, 2016

2016 Hamvention Awards to K1JT, W2XAB, WA1LOU and Rocky Mt. Ham Radio


Three amateurs and one radio club are being recognized with this year's Dayton Hamvention® awards, announced today by Awards Chairman Frank Beafore, WS8B. 

Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist Joe Taylor, K1JT, can now add Dayton's 2016 Amateur of the Year award to his long list of recognitions. Taylor is Professor Emeritus of physics at Princeton University. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the first binary pulsar, which helped confirm Einstein's theory of gravity waves, a phenomenon that was observed for the first time earlier this year. In ham radio, Taylor is best known for developing the WSJT suite of digital modes for weak-signal communications that have revolutionized moonbounce and meteor-scatter, as well as WSPR, the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter.

John Burningham, W2XAB, will be receiving Dayton's Technical Achievement award this year. John is a leading expert on DMR, a digital voice and data mode that is growing in popularity. He worked in the aerospace industry and for Motorola before beginning a second career teaching computer networking at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia.
The 2016 Special Achievement Award goes to Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, recognized for decades of leadership in promoting cutting edge technology in amateur radio, from home computers and packet radio in the 1980s to digital signal processing and software defined radio today. The author of five books and over 1200 articles, Stan is currently editor of Tucson Amateur Packet Radio's Packet Status Register newsletter, as well as a TAPR director and secretary.

Denver-based Rocky Mountain Ham Radio is being recognized as Club of the Year. It provides a myriad of services to its members and its community, including a microwave DMR network that connects hams from Cheyenne, Wyoming to CaƱon City, Colorado with expansion in progress to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The group also owns and operates a deployable communications command post with DMR, D-STAR, HF, VHF, UHF and packet/PACTOR, as well as both terrestrial and satellite Internet links. It also sponsors a youth organization, the Cherry Creek Young Amateur Radio Club.

The winners will be recognized at the 2016 Dayton Hamvention® on May 20-22 in Dayton, Ohio. For more information, visit www.hamvention,org..

See Heard Live, Mar. 22, 29, Apr. 5



 
Amateur Radio Roundtable host Tom Medlin, W5KUB, reports that he's planning to air three live video chats with the VK0EK Heard
Island DXpedition team during the group's planned three-week operation. VK0EK is scheduled to be on the air from March 20 to April 10, and the video chats are scheduled during W5KUB's live podcasts on March 22 and 29, and April 5. This is believed to be the first time a major DXpedition has been featured live on a ham radio broadcast/podcast.

Map of the "Antarctic Convergence." Heard Island is at
about 3 o'clock. The South Sandwich Islands are at
about 10 o'clock. (Illustrations from VK0EK.org website)

The Heard Island DXpedition is one of several recent or upcoming ham radio operations from remote southern islands. The May issue of CQ will feature the recently concluded VP8STI expedition to Southern Thule Island in the South Sandwich chain. For more information on the Heard Island operation, visit <www.VK0EK.org>.

Amateur Radio Roundtable airs every Tuesday night at 8:00 PM Central Time (0100 UTC Wed) on W5KUB.COM. The audio portion of each show is also simulcast on international shortwave station WBCQ on 5130 kHz.

 For more information, visit <www.w5kub.com> or the show's Facebook page at <https://www.facebook.com/groups/w5kub/>.