The Dayton Hamvention®
has announced the winners of its 2020 achievement awards. Yasuo
"Zorro" Miyazawa, JH1AJT, has been named Amateur of the Year for his
long-term commitment to advancing amateur radio as well as his philanthropic
work through the Foundation for Global Children, which he founded. (For more
about Zorro and his work, see "A50BOC: Thunder Dragon DX on the Low
Bands," in the April issue of CQ.)
This year's Technical
Achievement Award will be shared by the team of Joe Taylor, K1JT; Steve Franke,
K9AN, and Bill Somerville, G4WJS. They are the key members of the group behind
the WSJT-X software suite that has revolutionized ham radio, especially FT-8
and FT-4 (the FT stands for Franke and Taylor).
The 2020 Special
Achievement Award goes to Jordan Sherer, KN4CRD, who developed JS8Call, a new
digital protocol for weak-signal mesh networking and keyboard-to-keyboard
communication.
Finally, the Hamvention
Award Committee is honoring Oklahoma's
South Canadian Amateur Radio Society as Club of the Year. The club is heavily
involved in community service and Skywarn as well as sponsoring a host of other activities.
All of the honorees will
be recognized at a special banquet on Saturday night of the Hamvention.
