Hamvention 2024

Hamvention 2024 is in the books! It was REALLY GOOD for Halibut Electronics. We sold out of Common Mode Current Choke Test Rig kits, Contesting Consoles, and Radio Pro adapters. (Granted, I brought a limited number of them.) Several folks ordered things that I’ll have to ship to them when I get home.

More importantly, I met A TON of people. If you came out and said Hi, THANK YOU so much! It was wonderful meeting every one of you, seriously. My mental identity database tends to be very visual, not so much with the names or callsigns. So being able to put faces to names/callsigns/discord handles, has been absolutely wonderful.

It’s always good to explain things like OHIS to new people and see the “OoooOOOOhhhh!” look on their face when they finally get it. I had MANY opportunities for that. But I ALSO had people coming up to the table and saying things like, “I’ve heard of OHIS before, tell me more about it.” and “My buddy told me I needed to come over to your booth and see OHIS for myself. They weren’t wrong!” That shows that OHIS is seeping into the community consciousness. The grassroots are starting to grow. And I LOVE it.

I can’t count how many times I’ve explained the Contesting Console to folks, only to see their eyes light up and say “We need that for Field Day!” or similar. I even had one guy who is a tech for their local fire department say that he wanted to use CC (or something like it) for the intercoms in his fire engines! …I’m not so sure I’m ready to put someone’s life on the line with my hardware, but let’s talk.. 🙂

And EggNOGS. Oh my goodness, EggNOGS. Apparently, some of you following my progress went to the SatNOGS booth and told them about what I’m doing. Several folks from libre.space came to my booth to chat. I’ve given them some early EggNOGS prototype hardware to test and compare to other antennas; they are the PROS at this, so I look forward to their (constructive) feedback. I had a prototype EggNOGS antenna on the table, which got a LOT of attention too.

In short, the weekend was pretty dang awesome. Again, thank you to EVERYONE who came to the booth to say hi, or who asked “What the heck do you do?” and even all the MANY folks who couldn’t help themselves with the “I dunno, sounds pretty fishy to me” jokes.. 🙂

Next up: SEAPAC in two weeks. Then Huntsville Hamfest in August, and Pacificon in October. There are a few other events on my radar that I might make it to, but these are the ones I can confirm right now.

Thank you all again for all your support, and I hope to see you at the next convention! Cheers, 73 de N6MTS.
-Mark