After 7-1/2 hours of flying, and 6 hours of sleep (what can I say? The hum of the engines makes me sleepy) I'd finally made it to Zurich, Switzerland on Wednesday morning. After my flight arrived, I was met by Yvonne Thiemann, HB3YFG and Dennis M. Härtig, DL7RBI. Yvonne has served as an official of the Union Schweizerischer Kurzwellen-Amateure (USKA), and Dennis is the Secretary of International Affairs for the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC). These organizations are member societies of the International Amateur Radio Union; the Swiss and German equivalents of ARRL, respectively. Yvonne and her husband Andreas Thiemann-Denoth, HB9JOE welcomed me into their home for the night. We even had a chance to attend a local radio club meeting--members of the radio club in Winterthur, Switzerland (club call sign HB9W). It was great fun to talk with these local hams--where I found many similarities to ham radio back home: stories about field days, contesting, chasing DX, antennas, and more.

This a short blog entry! My trip to Friedrichshafen began on Tuesday, June 24th. My international flight via Continental Airlines began with a short domestic flight from Bradley International Airport in Hartford to Newark, New Jersey. Traffic delays kept us on the runway for departure for 2 hours! I'm glad I padded the time for the international leg. A short layover at Newark, and I was finally on a big jet over the Atlantic...for 7 hours. Destination...Zurich, Switzerland by Wednesday morning...

HAM RADIO 2008 in Friedrichshafen, Germany is June 27-29, 2008. It's billed as Europe's biggest Amateur Radio exhibition held annually in the Lake Constance region. This is the 33rd international Amateur Radio exhibition and the 59th year of the Lake Constance Convention of Radio Amateurs, sponsored by the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC), which gave rise to the Ham Radio fair. Among the many programs and exhibits, this year's event includes an amateur satellite theme and a big rally for young hams (and young prospective hams). There will be 17 activities for youngsters to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio on their own. A special training course will be offered to school teachers encouraging the use of Amateur Radio in their classrooms.

Each year, a contingent from ARRL has attended HAM RADIO in Friedrichshafen--greeting our non-US members and interacting with other national radio societies. ARRL also supports DXCC card checking at its booth--a very popular activity among the international community that travels to this large show.

The convention is preceded by GAREC-2008--the fourth Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Conference. The two day conference began on Thursday, June 26 at the Messe Friedrichshafen (the site of the HAM RADIO convention).

Last year's HAM RADIO had 18,100 visitors and over 500 exhibitors from 30 countries.