21 May
2005
21 May
'05
9:27 p.m.
One of the folks on the Milsurplus List (folks who collect and restore
early military radio, radar, and navigation gear) gave his report of the
Hamvention for today (Saturday) copied as follows. Should be an interesting
follow-up to Ethan's Friday report:
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Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 18:28:32 -0400
From: "Ray Fantini" <rafantini at salisbury.edu>
To: <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
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X-Guinevere: 2.0.15 ; Salisbury University
Subject: [Milsurplus] Dayton
Weather was much improved today, temperature in the mid seventies and
clear sky's with lots of sunshine. Do not know why but attendance was
about the same as yesterday, not the big crowds that I have seen in the
past on Saturday. Amount of sellers was same as yesterdays, did not
notice any new sellers. Some additional price information. Saw couple
ARC-5 transmitters, one covering 40 and the other on 80, both $60 each,
-- snip rest of OT msg portion --
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Looks like today was a great day, weather-wise, to be there. Wish I could
have went :-( My uncle lives over in Xenia (free place to stay ~15 miles
away), but I'm stuck here with schoolwork to do :-\
Upon the date 15:38 21-05-05, Ethan Dicks said something like:
With so many things going on around the house, I was
only able to
really do Friday of the Hamvention this year. Even so, it was a good
day, even if I wasn't able to find much of what I went shopping for.
Among my better buys were:
-- snip list of goodies scored, list of sightings, and weather report --
The other thing that struck me was the number of empty
flea market
spaces... in some cases, near the back, it was well over 60% in a
given area. Even on the dense side of the main aisle it wasn't
entirely full. I don't know if the looming clouds played a part, but
perhaps some Saturday-only folks may show up today to sell. I'd heard
that flea market space prices had jumped, so perhaps the market is
responding to the increase, or perhaps not as many people are willing
to gas up the truck to make the long trek. Either way, attendance
seemed to be good; the local news reported 30,000 attendees (no doubt
based on reported ticket sales), and was touting the $10M being spread
around by the Hams, much at local lodging and eating establishments.
Looks like many of the Saturday-only folks did not show up anyway according
to Ray's report. Cost of gas and higher flea market spaces probably killed
some of the vendor attendance for coming just only a day or two.
-Chris F.
NNNN
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt at netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/