On December 13th 2003 we opened the Hilton Sport & Hobby Shop for business for the first time. Our goal is to serve the amateur radio community, the shooting sports community and other hobby interests.
"My sports & my hobbies" is a phrase that I coined early on in order to try to explain to the general public the (Seemingly odd.) merchandise they were seeing upon entering the store.Of course, what I'm referring to are antenna's, connectors, coaxial cable and consignment radio gear. About 50% of the shoppers just looked around, examined the merchandise, made some positive comments and departed. About 25% seemed honestly interested to some degree and indicated that they would definitely be stopping back in the future. Then there is the final approximate 25%. By the expression on their faces you would think that they just stepped off the elevator expecting to be on the third floor of their favorite department store and found that they just stepped onto the surface of Mars, complete with three-headed little green men. No one out of the latter group actually fell down while running from the store.
PUBLIC INTRODUCTION I gave about thirty demonstrations of ham radio to the general public in the first several weeks we were open. Of these, I would say about half never heard of ham radio. The other half had some knowledge of the hobby. I did not encounter any that were previously hams.