In the log this week * Dayton Hamvention 2026 Recap * MVARC Nets on the Air * What’s happening with DX? * Solar Activity Update * Upcoming Contests * Interesting Online Radio Content As always, links to all referenced content can be found in the show notes, or at our Substack at mvarc.substack.com. Thanks for reading Amateur Radio News and Notes. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Dayton Hamvention 2026 Recap The 2026 edition of Dayton Hamvention took place on May 15-17, 2026 and Amateur Radio News and Notes was there. There were new product announcements from Icom and Yaesu, scores of vendors and flea market attendees selling their wares, many forums to attend, and several awards given to individuals and organizations of note in the amateur radio hobby. Perhaps the most anticipated announcements of Hamvention were those from Icom. They had several new and upcoming items on their list including ID-5200 mobile VHF/UHF rig which was on display with support for APRS and a Bluetooth KISS TNC. A price and release date has not yet been announced, but it is likely to be released at Tokyo Ham Fair later this year. Also announced was a new microphone and the AH-6 automatic antenna tuner, and both have no announced release date. The big tease from Icom was for their X-026 prototype. They had a plastic mockup under glass, but it was just a black box with no details on it and Icom staff were more interested in getting attendees thoughts on what it could be than giving specifics. Amateur Radio News and Notes was able to get some time with Icom’s Ray Novak N9JA to talk about what they brought to Dayton. Amateur Radio News and Notes: Hey, we’re here with Ray Novak here at the Icom booth, N9JA, and of course everybody knows Ray. Ray, you’ve got a lot of things being announced here, some a little more, real than others, some still in the prototype phase. Tell me about what, what we’re looking at here, new stuff here from Icom. Ray Novak N9JA: Well, a couple of the things here, we’re in various stages of prototypeness here. We’ve got the new X026 which is in a design concept, you know, one of those molded vehicles at the auto show that everybody goes, “Oh, that is so cool,” and then in the automobile industry maybe 20 years later they finally release the Tonka version of the Bronco. That took forever. But then we’ve got a microphone that is designed by the JAIA. I’ve heard that it looks like one of the Heil microphones, the PR781, uh, had somebody else tell me it looks like a Rode microphone. I haven’t had a chance to play with it to see what the front to back looks like, but it’s got in it the, uh, buttons to trigger—like I said I haven’t had a chance, but it looks like it triggers the digital voice keyer in the radio. Uh, we’ve got two almost production prototypes here, one being the AH6 which is 160 through 6 meters, both a random wire or a coax fed antenna system. And then finally the ID5200. Amateur Radio News And Notes: Well very good. Well, I’m very excited. I know there’s a lot of buzz around the, uh, the X026. I know you and I were talking a little earlier, might be a little while before it goes to market, but a lot of lot of speculation. Do you, do you have any, any favorite guesses you’ve been hearing, because I know a lot of people have been asking about it. Ray Novak N9JA: The more favorite guesses I guess I could say isn’t the ones where they’re like speculating what bands it will do, it’s more what would you like to see outside the box. And those, those have been the ideas that I’ve liked the most because it gives me an idea of hams thinking differently. Instead of just where does the microphone plug into, how long is the remote head cable, I want to see it do this band, that band, the other, I want the typical things that you would expect out of a black box. But I’m having fun hearing some of the things like what we did in the ID5200 with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, APRS, things like that. So those, those are the fun outside... it’s definitely outside the Icom box with like the APRS. Amateur Radio News and Notes: Fantastic. Well Ray, thank you so much for your time. I know you’re busy, got a lot of people going to talk to you but I appreciate you spending some time with us and, uh, look forward to seeing all this stuff out in the market. Ray Novak: Alright, thank you very much. Another highly anticipated set of announcements was from Yaesu. They announced the latest version of their digital voice system, Yaesu System Fusion III, along with their new DR-3X Repeater Systems. No price or release dates were announced, but Amateur Radio News and Notes spoke to Cory Sickles WA3UVV to learn more about what Yaesu announced at Dayton. Cory Sickles WA3UVV: Sure, I’m I’m Corey Sickles WA3UVV. Amateur Radio News And Notes: Well very good, so looking at the release here, I know they were talking about System Fusion 3 and then the new series of the DR3 repeaters. Can you tell me a little bit about that? What’s new in 3 and what can people look forward to with the new repeaters? I know a little bit more power, right? Cory Sickles WA3UVV: Uh, it is more power. Uh, the new repeaters are now available, they have dual band, dual input receivers still... compared to the DR2X, but a single transmit output and a single band. And the reason for that is that the increased power... what’s available with today’s technology for a given price point is such that it’s easier to do in a mono band configuration. So with VHF you get 85 watts out. With UHF you get 65 watts out. 100% duty cycle, full bore... that’s kind of the story of that part of things. Amateur Radio News And Notes: Well very good. So my, the club that I run this podcast through, we we use the 2. So what would be the... so obviously more power, I noticed also some new signal processing on that. Cory Sickles WA3UVV: There is. There’s a, uh, interference avoidance system, more information will be coming out about that, I don’t want to speak about it just yet. but if you have... and this is used in some commercial applications elsewhere in the world... you have interference, the repeater can switch to a different input frequency automatically AND communicate that transfer to radios... with firmware that will be upgraded at some point to do the same thing. So it would be an additional memory you’d have for this... situational kind of thing where it goes to that. Amateur Radio News And Notes: So would this be something where you’d have members of the club would sort of program it ahead of time with some sort of a key and then it would know, okay, it’s it’s time to go based on that authentication? Cory Sickles WA3UVV: Right. Right. One one example I could give of this, and it’s not the perfect one, but for my own club, we have a repeater up in the mountains. There’s a SCADA unit not too far from us. Every day at the exact same time, a gas valve opens and it puts that noise into the repeater. We once had that thing hang and it just tied up the repeater, couldn’t do anything about it other than report it to the gas company. Because we knew who the perpetrator was based on past experience. So this is something that in that scenario, the DR3 configured accordingly and the users, it would flip. Amateur Radio News And Notes: Okay. So I imagine in tight urban areas where you have a lot of, you know, you don’t have a lot of open frequencies that might be a bit of a challenge. Or or is the idea... I know they only transmit on on the band that they’re for but they do listen on both right? So would this be a situation where would it be maybe would people be moving from say VHF to UHF for the input during that time or would it... Cory Sickles WA3UVV: That is one possibility. Let’s say it’s a UHF repeater. You know, we have 30 megahertz on the 70 centimeter band. We heavily use 10 of that. Give the satellites their due. Still a lot of open room down in the 430 range... for for auxiliary inputs if you will, for something like that. So there really, you know, when we get to that band, we really don’t have the crowding of things. Amateur Radio News And Notes: Well very good. And another thing I noticed to talk about was the ASP which I know some of your newer rigs have. So would this... is my understanding right that essentially in weak signal conditions it’s going to add a level of audio processing and then that would then be boosting or taking that processed audio on the repeater output? Cory Sickles WA3UVV: Right. It’s a very current state of the art, digital signal processing for an analog signal. Uh, if you’ve had things like, uh, picket fencing, fry eggs, uh, you know the different sounds we have... It remedies that to whatever extent it needs to that technology allows. It’s a, it’s a really great thing. I mean, somebody who has used FM since the 70s and there are just certain things you just live with... we’re now at a point where we have a delivery of something where you don’t have to live with that. Amateur Radio News And Notes: Fantastic. And then in terms of the System Fusion 3 part, so what other things can people expect from the new standard? I know it’s backward compatible, right? Cory Sickles WA3UVV: Yes, absolutely. We’re we’re not taking anything away. there will be new features via firmware for certain radios. New things, you know, to come. If you remember the old Tonight Show billboard, ‘more to come’ along with that. And and some of this is is being developed. What you have right here is a working pre-production unit. It’s a real product. The firmware software things like that... later to be released to allow some of these features. Amateur Radio News And Notes: And any timelines of when when people can expect? Cory Sickles WA3UVV: Nothing that I... I I do not know. So if I were to give you a date, it
