Dayton Awards Announced - KF8J, VA7OJ/AB4OJ, N6IZW, Highland ARC Honored

The Dayton Hamvention® Awards Committee has announce its 2022 honorees. The Dayton awards are considered among the most prestigious in amateur radio. The Amateur of the Year award goes to the Hamvention's own Jim Simpson, KF8J. A member of the Hamvention Committee continuously since 1973, Simpson twice served as General Chairman and has held a variety of other posts both within the Hamvention Committee and the parent Dayton Amateur Radio Association. He also founded the Xenia Weather Radio Network after the town that now hosts the Hamvention was devastated by a tornado in 1974, and has been instrumental in forming and continuing to help with the 4-H Amateur Radio Club in Xenia.

This year's Technical Achievement award goes to Adam Farson, VA7OJ/AB4OJ, in recognition of his decades of service in providing independent technical support for various HF radios, particularly ICOMs. He also conducts and reports on independent measurements of nearly all new radios, and has produced the only data radio for hobbyists that clearly delineates the performance of software defined radios (SDRs) across the spectrum of band noise levels.

The Hamvention's Special Achievement award this year goes to Kerry Banke, N6IZW. A microwave RF engineer, Banke has been a key contributor to the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, designing and building both flight hardware and test equipment to certify the spaceworthiness of ARISS gear.

The 2022 Club of the Year is Ohio's Highland Amateur Radio Association, based in rural Highland County. The club has nearly 150 members, maintains five repeaters, hosts two weekly nets with average attendance of 28 hams, and holds both monthly and bi-monthly programs. Members are involved with emergency communications, Parks on the Air, and volunteer examining.

The awards will be presented at the Dayton Hamvention in May, the first in-person gathering for the event since 2019.