BREAKING NEWS FROM THE AMATEUR RADIO NEWSLINE - DAYTON HAMVENTION NAMES
2009 AWARD WINNERS

Hamvention® 2009
PO Box 964, Dayton Ohio 45401-0964
On-Line: http://www.hamvention.org

News Release
March 31, 2009 For Immediate Release

Contact: Henry Ruminski, Media Chair

937-232-9272

Hamvention® Names 2009 Award Winners

DAYTON, OH -- The Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA) will honor three
amateur radio (ham) operators who have made significant contributions to
the Amateur Radio Service, during Hamvention® 2009 which opens in Hara
Arena on May 15.

Recipients of this year's Hamvention® awards are Amateur of the Year Wade
D. "Danny" Hampton Jr., K4ITL, whose efforts helped create an extensive
emergency radio network for North Carolina; Special Achievement winner
Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, who introduced ham radio to thousands of students
from the International Space Station (ISS); and Technical Excellence
recipient Copthorne "Cop" Macdonald, VY2CM, a SSTV pioneer, ham radio
author, and renewable energy advocate

Frank Beafore, WS8B, Hamvention® Awards Chairman said the committee had a
tough task selecting the winners from the number of worthy nominees. "We
believe each winner has made a significant contribution to the ham radio
community. We were again impressed with the quality of the nominations."

Hamvention® Chairman Carl Rose, K8CPR, praised the winners, saying: On
behalf of the Dayton Amateur Radio Association and Hamvention® 2009 it is
my pleasure to congratulate this years Award Winners. Their outstanding
contributions and the many years of service exemplify what the amateur
radio service is."

Amateur of the Year Wade D. "Danny" Hampton Jr., K4ITL, of Raleigh, North
Carolina, is the architect of the Piedmont Coastal Repeater Network,
established in the early 1970s, which today sports more than 40 machines in
North Carolina. The system is heavily used for public service work. Hampton
has enhanced the network's utility with custom audio processing boards and
RF components. The North Carolina Office of Emergency Management and
SKYWARN have recognized the network's vital role in emergency
communication. Recently, Hampton helped coordinate the development of a
local hospital-based Amateur Radio emergency repeater system that ties 10
facilities together.

A ham since 1958, Hampton is Southeastern Repeater Association (SERA)
technical committee chairman as well as ARRL North Carolina Section
Technical Coordinator. "Danny's extensive knowledge of the two-way and
broadcast radio industries in this state has enabled him to assist many
repeater owners," said North Carolina SM John Covington, W4CC. "His advice
in resolving RFI problems between repeater and commercial services, and
other technical matters, has been extremely valuable to the Section."

The Hamvention 2009 Special Achievement Award winner Richard Garriott,
W5KWQ, is a legendary video game programmer/designer and ham radio operator
who was the sixth private citizen to fly to the International Space Station
(ISS).

Like his father, Owen Garriott, W5LFL, who made history as the first ham to
communicate from space with radio amateurs during the STS-9 Space Shuttle
mission, Richard was a ham radio pathfinder in his own right through
on-orbit experimentation, implementation of new capabilities, extensive
operations using many diverse operations modes, and phenomenal educational
outreach initiatives that inspired and transformed the lives of tens of
thousands students, worldwide.

Garriott was the most prolific ham radio operator to fly on a short
duration (15 day) mission. His 10 day stay on the ISS represented an
unsurpassed opportunity for hams and students worldwide. Over 500 2-way
voice QSOs were conducted, over a thousand SSTV images were down linked,
and tens of hours of packet operations were performed. He communicated with
tens of thousands of students in seven different Challenger Learning
Centers in the U.S., the Austin Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy in
Austin, Texas, the Pinehurst School in Ashland, Oregon, the Budbrooke
School in the U.K., and the National Space Challenge in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Garriott also had numerous random chats with scouts world-wide
as part of the amateur radio Jamboree on the Air (JOTA).

In an effort to kick-start the SSTV operations mode on ISS, Richard
received a specially modified Kenwood VC-H1 from the ARISS team which was
left on-board the ISS. This exciting, new capability will significantly
enhance the stature of ARISS educational outreach. He performed numerous
SSTV experiments, and helped the ARISS team test and debug several ham
radio systems on ISS, including the software-based SSTV systems---SpaceCam
and MMSSTV. In his short stay on ISS, he performed 10 times more SSTV
downlinks than any other crew member on the Shuttle, Mir or ISS. .

The Hamvention award for Technical Excellence winner Copthorne "Cop"
Macdonald, VY2CM, who got his first ham license at 15, and while an
engineering student at the University of Kentucky designed and built the
first ham radio SSTV system. The paper he wrote describing the system won
national first prize in the 1958 AIEE student paper competition. He worked
with other SSTV pioneers to get the FCC to authorize SSTV operation in the
HF ham bands an effort that succeeded in 1968.

Cop wrote many articles on SSTV for QST and CQ, and in 1973 started New
Directions Radio a network of hams concerned with using ham radio and SSTV
"to help create a more aware, more caring, and more responsible human
society." Associated with this activity were his two magazine columns:
"Cop's Column" in CQ and the "New Directions Radio" column in The Mother
Earth News.

Cop moved to Prince Edward Island Canada in 1975. In the early 1980s he ran
an energy conservation program there, and in the 1980s and '90s did much
writing for the PEI and Canadian governments on energy conservation and
renewable energy. At some point he realized that what we needed as
individuals and a world society is that more insightful, more caring, more
prudent way of being called wisdom. He has since written three books on
that subject (Toward Wisdom, Getting a Life, and Matters of Consequence),
and in 1995 started The Wisdom Page, a web presence devoted to wisdom
resources now located at www.wisdompage.com.

Hamvention, the worlds largest amateur radio gathering, brings more than
20,000 people to the greater Dayton area each year. The three-day event
includes exhibits, a flea market, forums and education sessions.

For more information about Dayton Hamvention 2009 (scheduled for May
15-17), visit the website at www.hamvention.org or e-mail
.

Information provided by Henry Ruminski, Media Chair - Hamvention(r) 2009