Dayton Roars Back … With an Asterisk

The world’s largest hamfest was back in-person in May for the first time since 2019. The Dayton Hamvention® drew an official attendance of 31,367 people to the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, Ohio, after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic. According to Hamvention officials, that’s about 1000 fewer people than attended in 2019, but General Chairman Rick Allnut, WS8G, said he considered that “not bad for a pandemic recovery year.”

Unfortunately, the pandemic is not completely behind us and CQ has heard reports from multiple sources of many attendees returning home and testing positive for Covid. We wish them all a full and speedy recovery.