Hara Arena Severely Damaged as Tornado Cluster Hits Dayton Area

Drone footage shows extensive tornado damage to Hara Arena,
former longtime home of the Dayton Hamvention. (WHIO-TV
photo, via W8CI)

The former home of the Dayton Hamvention suffered significant damage from a tornado that swept through the Dayton suburb of Trotwood on Monday night, May 27.

Drone video from WHIO-TV shows that the storm apparently passed directly over Hara Arena, ripping off large sections of its roof and causing a large amount of additional damage (amazingly, the car dealership across from Hara appears to have had little to no damage - see the end of the video). Hara Arena closed in 2016 and the Hamvention has been held for the past three years at the Greene County Fairgrounds in nearby Xenia.


Accuweather reported that the twister passed directly over Interstate 75, the main north-south highway through the Dayton area, and that highway crews used snowplows to clear debris from the road. There were no reported deaths from the Trotwood tornado, but there was at least one fatality resulting from another twister north of Dayton. A map posted by the Cincinnati Enquirer showed at least a dozen different tornado touchdowns in the Dayton area.

New Members Inducted Into CQ Amateur Radio, Contest and DX Halls of Fame

CQ magazine announced the induction of its 2019 "class" of new members of the CQ Amateur Radio, DX and Contest Halls of Fame. The names of the honorees were announced at the 2019 Dayton Hamvention ® in Xenia, Ohio. There are five new inductees to the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame, two new members of the CQ DX Hall of Fame and three additions to the roster of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame. The new members are as follow:

CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame 

• John Attaway, Sr., K4IIF (SK), served for more than 20 years as CQ's DX Editor, proposing the establishment of the CQ DX Hall of Fame in 1967. Professionally, John was a chemist who spent 26 years as Director of Scientific Research for the Florida Department of Citrus, where he worked to improve the quality of Florida orange juice. He served on several industry committees and was named to the Florida Citrus Hall of Fame in 2001.

• Dave Bernstein, AA6YQ, author of the DXLab software suite, which he makes available to the amateur community at no charge and without advertising.* Dave also volunteered his time and talent over several years to help the ARRL resolve major issues with its Logbook of the World electronic confirmation service.
• Doreen Bogdan-Martin, KD2JTX, Director of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Development Bureau and the first woman ever to hold a senior elected position in the ITU
• Predescu Florin Cristian, YO9CNU, founder of Europe's Youngsters On The Air (YOTA) program to encourage young people to become hams and be active on the air; and
• Ellen White, W1YL, the grand dame of DXing, served as the ARRL's Deputy Communications Manager, was QST magazine's DX editor, recorded QST on tape for the Library of Congress's talking book program for the visually-impaired, and was instrumental in the founding of Murphy's Marauders (the predecessor of today's Yankee Clipper Contest Club) and the Florida Contest Group. She was also recently awarded Russia's E.T. Krenkel Medal for outstanding global contributions to amateur radio.

CQ DX Hall of Fame

• Joe Taylor, K1JT – Nobel Prize winning-astrophysicist who has revolutionized the face of DXing with his suite of WSJT weak-signal digital modes, including FT8, which is capable of decoding signals well below the noise level. The modes pioneered by Joe have kept the HF bands busy and the DXers active even during the current solar minimum. Other WSJT modes have also revolutionized VHF/UHF DXing via moonbounce and meteor scatter. Taylor shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of binary pulsars. Joe was a member of the inaugural class of the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame in 2001.

• Silvano Borsa, I2YSB, and the Italian DXpedition Team – The Italian DXpedition Team has made more than 20 major DXpeditions in the past 20 years, mostly to Africa, where its members have activated more than a dozen rare countries, making nearly 1.4 million QSOs along the way. In addition, the team has arranged for the donation and delivery of two ambulances from Italy to Somalia, one of the many countries it has activated.
  In addition to team leader Silvano Borsa, I2YSB, the Italian DXpedition Team members include: Alfeo Caputo, I1HJT; Vincio Ravizza, IK2CIO; Angelo Selva, IK2CKR; Marcello Cassinelli, IK2DIA; Stefano Casari, IK2HKT; Angelo Gino Zambaiti, IK2RZP, and Mac Shimamoto, JA3USA.

The CQ DX Hall of Fame was established in 1967 to recognize those amateurs who have made major contributions to DXing and DXpeditioning. This is the 53rd annual induction.
 CQ Contest Hall of Fame

• Bruce Horn, WA7BNM, provides a great service to the contesting community via web-based resources for many popular contests. He maintains the most comprehensive contest calendar on the web, and he developed the popular <3830Scores.com> website where contesters go to post raw scores after an event ends, to compare notes and search past contest logs. He is also past manager of the North American QSO Party and developed the log submission apps on the National Contest Journal website.
• Dean Straw, N6BV, is an outstanding contester, a talented writer, editor, presenter and educator, and has advanced the state of the art in antennas, computer modeling, propagation and contest planning and preparation. As an ARRL staff member for 15 years, he edited multiple editions of The ARRL Antenna Book and several other publications. He also developed the High Frequency Terrain Analysis (HFTA) software ,which revolutionized antenna system planning by linking antenna design, installation height, tower location, surrounding terrain, and the expected angles of propagation to target regions. His work with the propagation prediction program VOACAP revolutionized the way we plan for contests, allowing specific band opening predictions dependent on solar conditions to indicate when band changes and operations should be planned.
• Kresimir "Chris" Kovarik, 9A5K (SK), developed the DXLog and KLog programs, competed in the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) and served the broader amateur radio community in Europe as past president of the Croatian Amateur Radio Association and as vice-chairman of the IARU Region 1 HF Committee. He became a Silent Key earlier this year.

 The CQ Contest Hall of Fame was established in 1986 to recognize those amateurs who have made major contributions to the art of radio contesting. This is the 36th annual induction.

Complete listings of CQ Hall of Fame members (not yet including the 2019 inductees) are on the CQ website at <http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/cq_awards/cq_hall_of_fame_awards/cq_hall_of_fame_awards.html> 

[*Note: This corrects an earlier version that stated incorrectly that the DXLab software suite is in the public domain. AA6YQ's code remains proprietary even though he has made the software available for use by hams without charge. It also fixes a typo in YO9CNU's call sign.]

Honda Recalls Several Generator Models

One of the Honda generators affected
by the safety recall (from Honda Power
website)

Heads-up before you head out for Field Day … American Honda has recalled several models of its portable generators. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says the recall affects models EU2200i, EU2200i Companion and EB2200i, colored red or camouflage. 

It says the generators can develop leaks from the fuel valve, posing fire and burn hazards, and advises purchasers to take them to an authorized Honda Power Equipment dealer for a free repair. Some 200,000 generators are involved in the recall. More information is available on the CPSC website at <https://tinyurl.com/y3vol9n2>.