Dayton Hamvention 2026: Schedule and Highlights

| May 8, 2026 | Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) | No Comments

Dayton Hamvention 2026 is just around the corner, scheduled for May 15–17, 2026, at the Greene County Expo Center in Xenia, Ohio. This year’s theme is “Radio Adventure,” celebrating the spirit of exploration in technologies, distances, and citizen science. The program is conducted by Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA).

Event Schedule & Logistics

  • Dates: Friday, May 15 through Sunday, May 17, 2026.
  • Hours:
    • Friday & Saturday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
    • Sunday: 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
  • Location: Greene County Expo Center, 210 Fairground Rd, Xenia, OH 45385.
  • Talk-In: 146.940 MHz PL 121.0 Hz.

Key Forums & Highlights

Several technical and scientific forums are scheduled that may be of particular interest to builders and satellite enthusiasts:

  • AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation) Forum: Saturday, May 16, from 1:50 PM to 3:10 PM in Forum Room 2. Expect updates on current and future satellite missions.
  • TAPR (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio)/AMSAT Banquet: Friday, May 15, at 6:30 PM (Kohler Presidential Banquet Center). WA1CYB, will be the speaker at this year’s banquet. The keynote will focus on the AMSAT SDR Gen2 project, a versatile GNU Radio-based transceiver designed for 1U CubeSats with continuous coverage from 144 MHz to 6 GHz, with 10 GHz coverage expected as well.
  • HamSCI (Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation) Forum: Friday morning, May 15. Topics include ionospheric disturbances, Meteor Scatter QSO Party and the results of recent solar eclipse experiments.
  • Antenna Forum: Typically features the latest in HF design and propagation research, often including discussions on 80m and 160m optimization. As we move into the minimum of Solar Cycle 25, propagation on higher bands will go down and that on lower bands may improve. That is why 80m and 160m sounds interesting for the coming few years.

Exhibits & Flea Market

  • The Flea Market: One of the largest in the world, with over 2,000 spaces. It is the premier place to find vintage gear, rare components for homebrew projects, and high-power RF hardware.
  • Indoor Exhibits: Major manufacturers and specialized vendors (like those supporting Meshtastic or SDR hardware) will be spread across six buildings. While technically Meshtastic is not ham radio as it uses unlicensed ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) bands like 900MHz or 868MHz, this is the biggest crossover topic in the amateur radio community in several regions right now.
  • Meshtastic Presence: There is a notable presence this year with special event firmware available for local nodes and hardware displays.

Important Deadlines

  • Banquet Tickets: The deadline to purchase tickets for the TAPR/AMSAT banquet is Monday, May 11, at 5:00 PM EDT. Tickets must be bought in advance and will not be available at the booth.
  • Lodging: Most hotels in the immediate Xenia/Dayton area book up months in advance, but last-minute cancellations sometimes appear in Fairborn or Kettering.

If you are following the event remotely, keep an eye on the official Hamvention YouTube channel and various live streams for real-time updates from the floor.