A few thousand of the more than 103,000 broadcasting industry professionals from around the world in Las Vegas April 22-27 for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention were radio amateurs. Nevada Section ARRL volunteers, under the guidance of Section Manager John Bigley, N7UR, and assisted by Section Public Information Coordinator Chuck Farnham, WD6CHC, were on hand to greet visitors and answer any questions they might have about ARRL membership and benefits, FCC regulations, licensing, operating activities, and other Amateur Radio topics.

“A large number of those hams stopping by the ARRL booth were international visitors, including Ajaya Gupta, VU2DED, of Mumbai, India, who presented the Nevada hams with a statuette of the State Emblem of India, which was adopted when India became a republic in 1950,” recounted Bigley. “The statuette was displayed in the booth for the duration of the convention.”

Bigley said booth visitors also came from Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, Brazil, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand.

On Wednesday, April 26, Nevada amateurs also joined hundreds of their colleagues from around the world at the annual Amateur Radio Operators Reception hosted by the NAB, DX Engineering, Broadcast Supply Worldwide, and Turner Engineering. Bigley welcomed the visitors to Las Vegas, acknowledged the hard work of the ARRL volunteers staffing the booth, and thanked attendees for their continued support of the NAB convention, and for making Las Vegas and the ARRL Nevada Section a part of their event.

The Sisterhood of Amateur Radio (SOAR), which holds its weekly net on Wednesday, took advantage of the reception waiting line by shifting net control to the convention site and inviting those on hand to check in. The activity set a new visitors’ check-in record, with 160 visiting hams added to the evening’s log.

An article in the Las Vegas Review Journal focused on the Amateur Radio reception. “People say that Amateur Radio is dead,” Farnham told reporter Todd Prince. “Well, there are ham radio operators every 3 feet on the NAB floor.”