HamFests… Treasures or trash? Where are the radios?
Dad (KØGVG) and I made the trek to the Cedar Rapids ARC HamFest (Summerfest).
I can’t imagine what some guys are thinking… Today, I saw:
- Huge collections of DVDs
- Huge collections of 1992-era PCs (no monitors or keyboards)
- Huge collections of junk that have undoubtedly been to dozens of hamfests before (at the end of the day a guy boxed up 8 overflowing tables of broken receivers, mics without cables, 1960s headsets with one earpiece, LP sets, and steak knives)
- Huge collections of huge hams telling huge stories of huge pile-ups
I was one of the original guys to start complaining when PCs, VHS tapes and other stuff that wasn’t related to ham radio began to appear at HAMfests. However, I do know that it’s a slippery slope. If you ban all the junk, that means the economics of the local club running the hamfest won’t work because there will be fewer folks renting tables.
That said, I was able to sell
- 2 NEMA-4 Hoffman enclosures
- 2 transformers
- 10 PCB terminal blocks
- a box of knobs
- 15 heat shrink tubes
- several packs of PCB standoffs
- a box of cable tie-downs
I bought a few things (coax seal, 25′ RG8X coax, 10″ UHF double female bulkhead connector, 8 AWG ring terminals, etc.).
I consider this to be a successful hamfest… I managed to buy only things related to ham radio (uh… except for the Maid-rite sandwiches) and sell only things related to ham radio (remotely anyway) and had a good time. Besides that, I only spent a little more cash than I had made through selling stuff I won’t use.