Pacificon is held the third week in October – this year it’s the weekend of October 16, 17 & 18. It is sponsored by the Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio Club, and this year we’re staying at the bigger and better venue in San Ramon, California. It is the regular site of the ARRL Pacific Division Convention, and NorCal has sponsored the QRP Forums for the past 10 years. This year’s forum is sponsored by the American QRP Club, and hosted by the NorCal QRP Club.

The "Pacificon hotel" is the San Ramon Marriott , which is offering convention attendees and exhibitors a special PACIFICON room rate of only $79 for each night (single/double). To get this rate, reservations must be made before October 1, 2003.  Call the Marriott at 1-800-228-9290 and ask for the PACIFICON 2004 rate.

Pacificon starts at 6:30 on Friday night with a social evening where we meet up with old friends and make new ones. We start the evening by going out en masse to a local restaurant where we have a "no host dinner". We then return to the host hotel where vendors and QRPers alike often show their projects at tables around the large banquet room in which we meet, right up until 11pm.

Saturday

This is the main event, wherein the illustrious QRP speaking staff delivers the presentations on Saturday.  We break for individual dinnertime cuisine at local restaurants and reconvene at 7:30 for an evening of wild QRP fun - a homebrew building contest and a special Pacificon Event are the usual activities for Saturday evening. We normally go until 11pm and then many of us then carry on in the hotel bar, quenching the insatiable QRP thirsts.

Sunday morning finds most QRPers hustling over to the hamfest for a morning of looking for that gem of a deal during the last hours of the ‘fest.