In a May 23, 2008 poll the ARRL asked " Have rising fuel prices reduced your willingness to travel to hamfests?". These polls are not supposed to be scientific, they are just for fun but when I looked at the poll on May 27th a surprising number of people, over 57%, said yes, gas prices had effected their willingness to travel to hamfests.
Since I just returned from the Dayton Hamvention and FDIM I thought about that a little. Here's my thinking...
From my house to Dayton is about 640 miles. If I drove a vehicle that got only 15mpg on the highway then at $3.50 per gallon my fuel would have cost about $150. The same trip at $4.50 per gallon would have used $192 in fuel, an increase of $42.
Our vehicle gets considerably better mileage than 15mpg and I'm not saying the extra $42 above is a non-trivial amount. However, I have to believe that if the $42 were a deal breaker you maybe shouldn't have been going on a big trip anyway. Also consider that that is for one person. If two, three, or four people are traveling together then the cost per person could drop to a difference of only about $10.
73,
Tim N9PUZ
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