Rocky Mountain Ham Radio, New Mexico is pleased to announce the 2024 New Mexico TechFest, an ARRL-sanctioned operating specialty event, on Saturday February 24, 2024 at the UNM Continuing Education Conference Center in Albuquerque, NM (1634 University Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87102).
New Mexico TechFest is a hybrid event: Both in-person and, for those unable to travel or attend in-person, online via Zoom’s professional webinar platform.
Join fellow amateur radio operators from around the Land of Enchantment (and beyond) for a day of quality presentations, demonstrations, and instruction provided by some of New Mexico and Colorado’s most experienced technical hams on a variety of emerging and relevant technical topics within amateur radio today. The New Mexico TechFest is designed to provide a unique opportunity for all hams interested in the technical aspects of our hobby to advance and expand their technical knowledge and to facilitate technical discussion, collaboration, and discuss ideas with one another.
Ham-specific and presentation-related prizes will be drawn throughout the TechFest event. Coffee, water, and light snacks will be available for in-person attendees. An optional, catered lunch will be provided to in-person attendees who purchase one.
Mark your calendars, spread the word, and join us for TechFest 2024!
TechFest Presentation, Posterboard, and Demo Lineup and Schedule
(Times shown are MST. Schedule times and order of presentations are subject to change.)
- 8:00am: Doors open, in-person registration check-in (no walk-ins permitted)
- 8:30-8:45am: TechFest kickoff, welcoming comments
- 8:45-9:00am: Overview of presentations
- 9:00-9:50am: On Final Approach to Max: Sunspot Cycle 25 Forecasting – Where are We, and What Have We Learned? (by Dr. Scott W McIntosh, Deputy Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, of Boulder, Colorado)
- 10:00-10:50am: SignalSnagger: An Open-Source 80-meter Radio Orienteering DF and QRP Receiver (Jerry Boyd WB8WFK of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Charles Scharlau NZØI of Cary, North Carolina)
- 11:00-11:50am: Evolution and Design of an HF Mobile Antenna for QSO Party County Activations (by Jim Duffey KK6MC of Cedar Crest, New Mexico)
- 12:00-12:50pm: Lunch, attendee collaboration, demonstrations, and posterboards
- 1:00-1:50pm: Scanners and Technical Tools for Receiving all the Other MHz (by Brian Adams KD7BJF of Albuquerque, New Mexico)
- 2:00-2:50pm: We Communicate by Ionospheric Reflection – Not Refraction (by Mike Hasselbeck WB2FKO of High Springs, Florida)
- 3:00-3:50pm: Why the New 2.8 kHz Transmit Bandwidth Limitation Ruling is Better than the Old 300 Baud Limitation (by Jim Frazier KC5RUO of Albuquerque, New Mexico)
- 3:50-4:15pm: Final prize drawings, closing comments
- 4:15-5:00pm: Open forum for TechFest attendees to collaborate
POSTERBOARD TALKS:
- Winlink VARA HF and VARA FM Received Signal Constellations Explained (by Jim Frazier KC5RUO of Albuquerque, New Mexico)
- Interested in providing a posterboard talk at TechFest? Please contact us at techfest@rmham.org
DEMONSTRATIONS:
- 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing (by Jon Fox WØAMT of Albuquerque, New Mexico)
- Interested in providing a demonstration at TechFest? Please contact us at techfest@rmham.org
»»» Click here for Presentation, posterboard and demonstration abstracts and Speaker biographies
Register to Attend the New Mexico TechFest
TechFest admission is $15, payable via online registration. Pre-registration is required to attend (sorry, walk-up registrations cannot be accepted).
»»» UPDATE: Registration for the 2024 New Mexico TechFest has closed. Sorry, walk-in’s cannot be accepted.
What are New Mexico TechFest proceeds used for?
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- Cost of all-day venue rental
- Cost of license for professional Zoom webinar license to enable hybrid format
- Purchase of coffee, water, and light snacks
- Purchase of prizes (donations are increasingly hard to come by for many businesses given economic and supply chain challenges)
- Cost to ship/deliver prizes to their lucky winners, as needed
- Remaining proceeds are applied directly to the continued expansion of RMHAM’s 5-GHz multi-megabit amateur radio microwave network/backbone, an infrastructure that enables partnered amateur radio clubs to expand their repeater capabilities.
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2024 TechFest Prize Lineup and Contributors
We are excited to give away a number of purchased and donate prizes at this year’s event. Because this year’s event will be hybrid (in-person and virtual), we will ship/deliver prizes to their lucky winners as needed.
Prize lineup (subject to change)
- 3D-printed vertical antenna coil from the cover of QST Magazine (October 2022), including articles on 3D printing…does not include hardware or wire needed to finish the coil (Quantity 5)
- ARRL Radio Wave Propagation book
- ARRL gift certificates ($50 and $25)
- Alpha Antenna rebate ($100)
- Digital RF Attenuator module (31 dB)
- DX Engineering gift certificate ($50)
- NanoVNA-H4 V4.3 vector network analyzer
- QRP Labs QMX ulti-band multi-mode transceiver
- Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 (Quantity 10)
- SDRplay RSP1B 1 kHz-2 GHz software defined receiver
- ZachTek WSPR-TX Mini Transmitter plus cards for 15, 20, 30, 40m filters
- Additional prizes will be added here.
Rocky Mountain Ham Radio and the New Mexico TechFest wishes to recognize and thank the following prize donors:
- ARRL
- Alpha Antenna
- DX Engineering
- Ed James KA8JMW (Raspberry Pi Picos and QRP Labs QMX transceiver)
- Jon Fox WØAMT (3D-printed parts)
- Additional prize donors will be added here.
Interested in donating a prize to the New Mexico TechFest? Please contact us via email at techfest@rmham.org. Rocky Mountain Ham Radio is a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible.
»»» Unique prize drawing number assignments for registrants
Event Flyer
A printable event flyer is available for posting on ham listserves, within your club’s newsletter, or on your club’s website. Please help us spread the word across the amateur radio community about this unique event.
»»» Download and help pass around the New Mexico TechFest flyer.
Call for Presentations and Important Dates
The New Mexico TechFest seeks high quality presentations and demos on emerging and relevant amateur radio technical topics, techniques, and applications. Original content highly encouraged. Hams interested in conducting a TechFest presentation or demo should submit a summary/abstract of their proposed topic to techfest@rmham.org for consideration. Please note the following:
Call for TechFest presentations, posterboards, and demos: Today thru January 27, 2024Deadline to submit summary/abstract of proposed presentation, posterboard, or demo: Saturday January 27, 2024Summaries/abstracts reviewed by TechFest committee, presentation lineup finalized: Sunday, January 28, 2024- TechFest presentation lineup announced and posted on website: On/about February 4, 2024
- TechFest online registration opens: On/about February 4, 2024
- Presentation slots are generally 50 minutes in length, including all anticipated discussion and Q&A.
- More than one presentation or demo proposal may be submitted for consideration.
- Sales and promotional presentations are not permitted.
For inquiries or to submit your technical presentation abstract, please email us at techfest@rmham.org