By Cale K4HCK
Another Hamvention is in the books and this year's event was absolutely worth the 6 hour drive to reach the amateur radio promised land. From new radios, to connecting with internet friends face-to-face for the first time, there was a lot to be excited about. This year, Nate (N8FOO), the ham originally responsible for me getting into the hobby was willing to brave the long road trip and tag along with me. A road trip is always easier with good conversation and someone keeping an eye out for abandoned long-lines towers.
Hermes Project
One of the most compelling projects that we came across at the show was the Hermes project from Rhizomatica. Talking with this group was refreshing. The project aims to get dead simple, yet capable communications hardware into rural areas that don't have reliable internet or cellular service. The goal is to keep communities connected.
What really stands out with Hermes is the focus on simplicity when it comes to building a solution. The transceivers are built around an extremely simple interface that is unsurpassed in the world of amateur radio. Tap to send a message, type out the message to send, and tap once more to send the message. Perfect for their end users relying on a tool to survive.
Oh, and they're working on an Open Source replacement for VARA.
Meshtastic
One of the more exciting pieces of technology that I was anxious to see in action was the amateur radio adjacent Meshtastic project. They even had a special firmware set up just for the convention. However, I was somewhat disappointed in the lack of activity. While it worked well and I was able to exchange a couple messages, there just weren't that many nodes. Maybe 2 dozen or so? I was expecting exponentially more. I'll be curious to hear what others experienced.
DX Engineering and Summit Racing
We finally saw the crossover that ham radio and racing enthusiasts have been waiting for with a joint display from Summit Racing and DX Engineering. Maybe a race spec Miata outfitted with ham gear next year?
Zero Retries and IP400
IP400 was on display alongside the MMDVM group. It was exciting to not only see this project functioning, but to see it come together in a relatively short time span. Steve Stroh (N8GNJ) and Martin Alcock (VE6VH) have been pushing hard to get to this point and I'm excited to see what the next 6 months bring. But beyond IP400 we had the chance to spend some time with Steve Saturday night and just talk about all kinds of different aspects of amateur radio and technology. We did our best to solve all the problems, from figuring out how to light up dark repeaters to the best path to modernize the premiere publishers of amateur radio content.
No one else is doing the in-depth exploration of cutting edge technology in the world of ham radio like Steve is. Zero Retries should be required reading for all hams interested in the future of ham radio.
Hamvention Awards
Once again I was invited to attend the Hamvention Awards Banquet and once again it was a surreal experience. A number of exceptional hams were honored. We had the chance to speak with Dr. Kristina Collins (KD8OXT) who was presented the Hamvention Technical Achievement Award for her work helping to develop the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station Network. We also spent a few minutes with Julio Ripoll (WD4R) the recipient of the 2025 Special Achievement Award. He was instrumental in getting an amateur radio station into the National Hurricane Center in Miami back in 1980. I mentioned my experience with hurricane Andrew when living in Miami in 1992 and learned that Julio designed the repairs to the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant which sustained damage after a direct hit from Andrew. Incredible stories and the people behind them are uncovered at the awards banquet. Thanks to Michael Kalter (W8CI) and the awards committee for such incredible access. Hamvention is providing a great service by calling out and honoring the best of the amateur radio community.
Radio Club of America
A direct outcome of attending the awards banquet was being added as members of the Radio Club of America (RCA). Thanks to RCA for their generosity in welcoming Nate and I to their organization. The club is a mixture of amateur and professional broadcast worlds coming together to form a professional group that connects leaders and helps shape the future of wireless communications. We'll be publishing relevant insights and events from RAC moving forward.
RCA’s Mission: “The promotion of cooperation among those interested in scientific investigation in the art of Radio Communication.”
AI and Amateur Radio
We haven't yet seen AI become as pervasive in the world of Amateur Radio as it has become in the tech sector, but there were two notable points of progress to relay coming out of Hamvention. The first point has been well published, but it's worth calling out again that RADE is a digital voice mode that is built with assistance from LLMs and the result is quite possibly some of the highest quality digital audio over low-bandwidth RF available.
The other point is not as widely known. The TAPR booth was showing off a project from the Time-Nuts (aka Time Lords) in which the entire Time-Nuts email mailing list (going back 30 years) was combined with additional Time-Nuts documentation and indexed by an LLM. The result was a locally running instance of an AI assistant capable of returning answers relevant to any question related to precise time keeping. Hopefully this tool will be available to a wider audience, soon. We're likely to see more examples of libraries of information being made available in similar fashion.
Amateur Radio Has a Bright Future
In the end, Hamvention illustrates the strong community that makes up amateur radio. If you can look past the surface level aspects of the hobby that most of us are well familiar with, there's an incredible amount of people working really hard to advance this hobby for the next generation. One of the most encouraging sights at Hamvention was the group of college students huddled around the ARRL Collegiate Amateur Radio Program booth. The numbers were strong. Between the younger generation simply showing up and the older generation working to foster relationships with newer hams, the hobby is in good hands.
Source: Amateur Radio Daily
