I usually go to the as many hamfests (ham radio show and swap meet) as I can. It looks like that will be only two this year, but they are the largest and third largest in the US. I drove the 480 mile round trip to the Orlando hamfest this weekend.
I have an extra class ham license, but I am not that into ham radio. I will venture through the new products and commercial displays to see what's new, but don't buy anything, so why do I go to hamfests?
For the swap meets. I usually go looking for tubes, and cheap tubes at that. I usually set my limit at $1, but I did pay $5 for a pair of tubes yesterday.....a 45 and a 71A. To compensate for that expense I purchased 30 assorted 6 volt sweep tubes for $15, 50 cents each. A few other random tubes brought the total to 36 tubes, well below my usual haul. Still, hardly worth the trip.
Well there were the guitar amps......and the components......and tube sockets from ESRC.......and Vector board......
Guitar amps at a hamfest....I always go directly to the back of the swap meet when the show opens and work my way toward the front. I had just started when my phone rang. It was a friend asking if $100 for a Marshall 4 X 12 cabinet with Celestions was a good deal. I was about 1 minute too slow. I was almost to the spot where he was when he called. He bought the speaker cabinet, but the seller had 5 dead guitar amps, if I took them all they were $5 each. Deal. I planned on gutting them and using the cabinets for my own amps, but this funny looking Fender Guitar Digital Entertainment Center got my interest, so I fixed it. It is a cool toy. I will play with it for a while and then sell it of gut it when I lose interest. There is another Fender I might fix, but the others will be gutted.
What does $104 buy at a hamfest? The bag on the left is full of mylar and polyprop caps, the other bags are NOS Allen Bradley carbon comp grid stoppers.
The biggest hamfest in the world is in Dayton Ohio on May 18 through 20. That one tends to bring out some tube audio stuff too.
I have an extra class ham license, but I am not that into ham radio. I will venture through the new products and commercial displays to see what's new, but don't buy anything, so why do I go to hamfests?
For the swap meets. I usually go looking for tubes, and cheap tubes at that. I usually set my limit at $1, but I did pay $5 for a pair of tubes yesterday.....a 45 and a 71A. To compensate for that expense I purchased 30 assorted 6 volt sweep tubes for $15, 50 cents each. A few other random tubes brought the total to 36 tubes, well below my usual haul. Still, hardly worth the trip.
Well there were the guitar amps......and the components......and tube sockets from ESRC.......and Vector board......
Guitar amps at a hamfest....I always go directly to the back of the swap meet when the show opens and work my way toward the front. I had just started when my phone rang. It was a friend asking if $100 for a Marshall 4 X 12 cabinet with Celestions was a good deal. I was about 1 minute too slow. I was almost to the spot where he was when he called. He bought the speaker cabinet, but the seller had 5 dead guitar amps, if I took them all they were $5 each. Deal. I planned on gutting them and using the cabinets for my own amps, but this funny looking Fender Guitar Digital Entertainment Center got my interest, so I fixed it. It is a cool toy. I will play with it for a while and then sell it of gut it when I lose interest. There is another Fender I might fix, but the others will be gutted.
What does $104 buy at a hamfest? The bag on the left is full of mylar and polyprop caps, the other bags are NOS Allen Bradley carbon comp grid stoppers.
The biggest hamfest in the world is in Dayton Ohio on May 18 through 20. That one tends to bring out some tube audio stuff too.
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You go to hamfests for the same reason most of us buyers do. To find treasure. But I would get there at 5:30 and go in as a vender even though I don't sell. This gets me inside well before the general crowd gets in. Most of the good items are bought and sold during setup. And I've been doing this for the past thirty years. This includes Dayton back when it was much different then it is now. Years ago you could find lots of good stuff there like audio amps, tubes and test equipment at bargin prices. Today, too many sellers think their garbage items are worth a small fortune. I used to bring thousands of dollars with me and drive back with a car full. One of my favorites was the Hosstraders in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, those times are over. There are very few good items at true bargins anymore. And there are many more sharks swimming around looking for the same things.
Some of my best audio finds were a Marantz 7 for $15. A McIntosh MI-350 for $100. A couple of Harmon Kardon Citation II's for $50 each. (different shows) An Acrosound Stereo 120 for $50. All these were years ago.
The Maryland area used to provide a wealth of high tech serveillance receivers from Watkins Johnson, Racal and Interad since they were all based in that area. And NSA would occasionally dump some good stuff too that wound up at the shows. But not anymore
Some of my best audio finds were a Marantz 7 for $15. A McIntosh MI-350 for $100. A couple of Harmon Kardon Citation II's for $50 each. (different shows) An Acrosound Stereo 120 for $50. All these were years ago.
The Maryland area used to provide a wealth of high tech serveillance receivers from Watkins Johnson, Racal and Interad since they were all based in that area. And NSA would occasionally dump some good stuff too that wound up at the shows. But not anymore
Here in Germany we also have flea markets and those special ham markets. But prices are astronomic and chances you find some treasures are close to zero.
Furthermore, Gas is around 1.5€ per liter (7.5$ per gallon!!!) and having to get up very very early without the guarantee to find anything makes no sence. I rather have a quiet weekend and buy the things I want from ebay where I can have a refund when I'm not satisfied. Even when it costs more, yes.
Furthermore, Gas is around 1.5€ per liter (7.5$ per gallon!!!) and having to get up very very early without the guarantee to find anything makes no sence. I rather have a quiet weekend and buy the things I want from ebay where I can have a refund when I'm not satisfied. Even when it costs more, yes.
We go to hamfests and garage sales for the same reason.
We look for the deal, like HollowState wrote he found some great bargains
I too have been lucky at the TRW/Northrup Gruman Swap meet in finding
product that has been hoarded away and finally come to sale..
I'm afraid of going to Dayton in trying to find a way to ship back what I
find...So far never been there.
For me it's the art of the find...
We look for the deal, like HollowState wrote he found some great bargains
I too have been lucky at the TRW/Northrup Gruman Swap meet in finding
product that has been hoarded away and finally come to sale..
I'm afraid of going to Dayton in trying to find a way to ship back what I
find...So far never been there.
For me it's the art of the find...
I spent $52 for gas, and used points to get a free hotel room. Dayton is a bit further away, 1100 miles, but I will be going to West Virginia anyway, so I just make sure I go there in May. I have already reserved a hotel room with rewards points. Dayton hotels charge stupid money on hamfest weekend.
I used to go to all the local hamfests including the late great Miami Hamboree. I went as a vendor for about 15 years. Tubelab has been around for about 7 years, but I have been making electronics kits for about 30 years.
Sherri and I were both packrats. Now recovering packrats. At the height of the insanity we were renting 3 storage bays. That worked since she was the manager of the storage facility, and got a break on rent. We have had to clean out the houses of both our parents, and help freinds through the same ordeal. We realized that we have far more projects than we have life left, and also know that our only child lives in Seattle and doesn't know an Ohm from a Gigawatt. We are now down to one rental unit, with a goal to be out of it before the end of the year.
Truly a service to those who remain. Though someone who trolls the estate sales may be the poorer for it...
Thank you. You have inspired me to speed up my "three projects" gathering of inventory and parts. I just hope that I don't get sidetracked from the three projects and venture into side projects, fixer uppers, or franken-amps...
The hamfests around here (Colorado) seldom have much of interest to us audio folks. Just went to one today though & did manage to pick up a Sprague TO-6 Capacitor Analyzer for $5.00 and a few NOS 6CG7's, 12AU7's & 12AT7's for a buck each. The 12AT7's will be perfect for my Tubelab Simple PP's (great amps by the way, thanks George!).
Google hamfest. You'll get to the ARRL site that has the "official" ARRL sanctioned hamfests in the USA, though there are some less "official" hamfests and swapfests that aren't listed there. When you go to a hamfest/swapfest you'll usually see flyers for upcoming ones within 100-200 miles or so.
I haven't gotten a lot of tube stuff at hamfests, but in '96 I got a SX-42 for $40 - I wasn't even familiar with the model, but as big as it is I figured it had to be worth at least that. It's more than adequate for AM broadcast listening, but the top two bands don't seem to work.
Dalton has a hamfest at the end of the month, and an unofficial swapfest in late summer. Last year I saw an interesting Yamaha power amp (I forget the model, but it's 120W per side) on the ground, asked about it and he said "You want it? Take it." I walked by again later and he pointed out the Realistic quadraphonic receiver with no case that was still sitting there and said "Go ahead and take that." It has some decent heatsinks I'm sure I can use for chipamps. Woops, this whole paragraph is off-topic, sorry about that...
I don't see it as off topic. I bought the guitar amps with the idea that I would use the cases and parts to build something new. And yes the Line 6 amp has a pair of heatsinks that I will use for cooling sand. There were no tubes in any of the amps, but there will be....
I bought the guitar amps with the idea of using the cases, but I already fixed one of them and am resisting the urge to fix another.....projects.....more projects....I need to finish a few projects.
I grew up in Miami. Moved to Ft. Lauderdale 38 years ago, and have never lived anywhere else. Miami made the number one spot in Forbes' "ten most miserable cities", and Ft. Lauderdale is number 7. I will be leaving this area within a few years (don't know excatly when) and I can't take 40 years worth of "stuff" with me.
The term hamfest can apply to 50 people selling out of the trunk of their cars, to 20,000 people gathering at an old hockey arena in Dayton Ohio. The large ones seem to have something for everyone, but the prices can be unrealistic. The smaller ones generally are sparsely populated with stuff useful to our crowd, but the prices can be good.
There used to be a twice a year hamfest here in the parking lot of the Motorola plant where work. I got lots of tubes, power supplies and parts there over the years. It died when the layoffs decimated the ham radio club that ran it.
I've found my best tube stuff at charity resale shops. Bogen & another PA amps, $15 with tubes. What is really cool is one is by the grocery store, that I ride the bus too, so no gas or motel bills. When I go buy lumberyard stuff I stop at one with a guy department that keeps things like 24 VCT 50A transformers and PC-CD-DVD components. I loaded up on wall transformers there, $1 each. Tube organs, with a power amp and speaker, $30, but you have to have a truck. The Hammond A100 organ was $129, they are not totally ignorant. I fitted that in the trunk of the car instead of renting a truck.
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