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 Previous: Space & Beyond: Pakistan's New Moon |  Next: ARRL Board of Directors to Meet in Connecticut |
Article and
Photos by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R
ARRL Marketing Manager
July 10, 2003
The League is on hand to greet its non-US members, interact with other national radio societies and perform QSL card checking.
 Outdoor cafes, shops and restaurants line the lakefront on Friedrichschafen's promenade. |
The name of the event says it all: HAM RADIO/HAMtronic 2003. Held in the newly built Messe Friedrichshafen venue, HAM RADIO brought together exhibitors and visitors from 30 nations to the international Amateur Radio exhibition in Friedrichshafen, Germany, June 27-29. It was my first trip to beautiful Friedrichshafen to experience Europe's largest ham show.
I went as part of the ARRL contingent in my capacity as ARRL's Marketing Manager. Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer Dave Patton, NT1N, organized the ARRL exhibit. Included among our team was Sales and Marketing Manager Dennis Motschenbacher, K7BV; Membership Services Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG; International Affairs Vice President Rod Stafford, W6ROD, and First Vice President Joel Harrison, W5ZN.
After flying in to Zurich, Switzerland by myself on the Wednesday preceding the show, I took a scenic one-hour trip by train east to the town of Romanshorn, located on the shore of beautiful Bodensee-Lake Constance. Then, a short 45-minute ride across the lake by ferry took me into the harbor of Friedrichshafen.
 The courtyard was a nice place to relax with friends for a bite to eat or other refreshment. |
A Really, Really BIG Show
Thursday morning, I met up with Dave and Rod and accompanied them to the Messe to set up our exhibit. My mouth dropped open when I saw the facility for the first time: well organized, clean and huge! We unloaded the materials and started to set up. Among the items we'd shipped were ARRL membership forms, sample publications, ARRL award information and supplies for DXCC card checking.
 A familiar sight to any ham, anywhere in the world! |
This was the 27th annual HAM RADIO convention, but the first time it was held at the newly built Messe Friedrichshafen venue. The facility opened July 2002, and it's located north of the city, near the airport. The entire show utilized nearly 240,000 square feet; an enormous flea market covered almost 90,000 square feet by itself in just one of the Messe's nine exhibit halls. Three additional halls were utilized: one was used as a gathering space for associations and organizations, another large hall housed the major exhibitors and suppliers, and a youth camp was set up in a fourth hall. There were plenty of campers, too, enjoying a camping area set up in a portion of the parking lots. In all, the event drew nearly 20,000 visitors.
The ARRL exhibit was located in a common area with the other attending IARU member societies in what can only be described as a large cultural fair. We were situated next to the Israel Amateur Radio Club, and members of their club greeted visitors with tasty figs and toasted ham radio friendships with table wine. During the show, I enjoyed walking from society to society, greeting representatives from many countries and filling up on their gifts of candy and snacks.
 Dennis, K7BV; Wayne, N7NG, and Falk, DK7YY, mow down piles of QSL cards while checking DXCC applications. At right, Dave, NT1N, goes over some of the details of a DXCC application with several amateurs. |
The DXCC card-checking service was the biggest draw to the ARRL exhibit. Once the doors to the convention opened, amateurs quickly lined up to turn in their cards for new DXCC awards and endorsements. It was great fun to watch the excitement among these award seekers--some who had traveled very long distances with their QSL cards. The sheer volume of cards was sometimes overwhelming, though. Unusually hot temperatures in Friedrichshafen--over 90° and humid--made the hall quite uncomfortable. Plus, there wasn't any air conditioning installed in the venue. Still, the tireless card checkers continued throughout each day of the show, taking just a few breaks to look up from their tables. Falk Weinhold, DK7YY; Gerard Debelle, F2VX; Kenton Dean, HB9DOT, and Michael Oerter, DJ5AV, volunteered as DXCC card checkers. N7NG and K7BV served stints as card checkers, too.
NT1N did yeoman's work checking cards and handling the administration of award applications during the entire exhibition, ensuring that everyone who brought cards would walk away satisfied. He regularly carried cards back to the hotel each night, continuing to check as long as his weary eyes would permit before reaching exhaustion. Being unfamiliar with the award, I offered little help to the DXCC portion of the exhibit, except to run interference when visitors stopped by to engage the busy checkers. When it was over, 214 applications--about 30,000 cards--were checked for DXCC credit.
 Passersby look at a wall of QSL cards. Tape was affixed to the wall so hams could tack up one of their cards for others to see. |
Meetings and Greetings
The exhibition was also host to the 54th Annual Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) Lake Constance Meeting. Dozens of lectures and meetings covered current and exciting topics: contesting, radio interference suppression, low band operating, education, stamp collecting radio amateurs, YL meetings, and more.
As part of my responsibilities for attending the show, I visited the exhibits for many of the manufacturers, dealers, sister societies and organizations. Some of the innovative antenna support designs I saw could easily send a DXpeditioner into the field with a backpack containing a structure that telescopes to 30 or 40 feet!
I also met with hundreds of visitors to the ARRL exhibit and about 40 hams signed up to become new ARRL members. Many joined to receive their QST membership journal and I was surprised to learn that many international ARRL members read QST to increase their English language skills. ARRL international membership includes monthly airmail delivery of QST or annual delivery of the QST CD-ROM. Others attributed their new membership to a desire to support popular ARRL international operating awards, including DXCC.
There were many moments throughout the show that helped underscore the important place Amateur Radio has in fostering international goodwill:
 A Zeppelin glides across the dusky Friedrichshafen sky. |
Home of the Zeppelin (Airship, not Antenna)
The lakeshore promenade in Friedrichshafen is one of the longest on the lake, with shops, restaurants and outdoor cafes overlooking the water. While ham radio was undoubtedly the draw in Friedrichshafen that week, there were plenty of additional activities and excursions that made the area a great destination for us tourists. Available activities included fishing, swimming, boating, shopping, golf, bicycle-riding and sightseeing flights.
The history of Friedrichshafen alone is compelling enough to want to travel to this region. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin assembled the first rigid-framed, lighter-than-air vehicle in a suburb of the town. It went aloft on July 2, 1900, making Friedrichshafen famous. The airships were used to bombard Paris and London during the early days of World War I. The Hindenburg, which exploded and burned in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937, contributed to the end of the age of the hydrogen-filled airships. Today, Friedrichshafen's Zeppelin Museum houses one of the largest dirigible history collections in the world. And, since 2001, one-hour sightseeing flights on the Zeppelin NT can be booked. I enjoyed seeing these big airships soaring above the town throughout my visit to the ham radio exhibition, as the NT landed in an airfield close to the exhibition venue. With the next exciting HAM RADIO convention just a little over 11 months away, it's going to be hard not to want to go back!
Bob
Inderbitzen, NQ1R, is the ARRL Marketing Manager. A ham since 1981, he enjoys HF contesting and ragchewing. Inderbitzen can be reached at nq1r@arrl.org,
or by telephone at 860-594-0213.
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