This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first ARRL New England Division Convention, and Northeast HamXposition committee members are discussing ways to commemorate the milestone.
New England Division conventions have been held for one hundred years, although there haven’t been one hundred annual conventions. New England’s first ARRL-sponsored Division convention was held in Springfield, MA, on 28 and 29 March 1924. Division conventions moved to Worcester (1925), Providence (1926), Hartford (1927), and Boston (1928). Throughout the twenties and thirties, Boston-based Massachusetts State conventions were typically held in combination with the Boston Hamfest. Division and State (Section) conventions filled the average ham’s social calendar from the 1920s to the 1960s.
The original New England gathering, the 1920 Conference on Interference, was a meeting of the FCC Boston office, Amateurs, and Harvard and MIT traffic handlers to address issues affecting the passing of traffic. The 1922 “convention” was also principally one of a continuing series of traffic meetings. The 1924 convention (“the first real convention ever held as such,” per QST) and those thereafter were usually the kind of technical get-to-know-you events we are now used to.
A few historical highlights:
- The Springfield ARA celebrated its 20th anniversary and the League’s 25th anniversary by sponsoring the New England Division convention in 1939.
- Attendance at early conventions was in the low hundreds. Attendance finally totaled one thousand—at the Massachusetts Section convention—in 1939.
- Conventions were suspended from 1941 through 1945. Then in April 1946, QST pronounced, “FLASH! First Postwar New England Division Convention, Dennison Memorial Hall, Framingham, Mass. Saturday May 4th.”
- The New England Division conventions presented a Ham of the Year award in the mid-1960s.
- The New England Division convention was billed as “the world’s largest “hamfest” in April 1964 QST.
So what does today’s New England Division convention offer? Camaraderie, flea markets, a full program of talks, vendors, activities and demonstrations, banquets, guest speakers, and prizes. Amateur Radio is a doing, achieving, learning hobby, with many personal rewards. At conventions, we convene: we share the opportunity to exchange brags and ideas, and have the opportunity to learn about the full spectrum (pardon the pun) of Amateur activity and interest.
—Thanks, Skip Younberg, K1NKR
[The complete article can be viewed at <https://hamxposition.org/one-hundred-years-of-new-england-division-conventions/>]