We mostly toured the buildings, but I went away disappointed as there were no test equipment vendors present - in fact, the only real TE vendor there was Bird, but they aren’t selling to me. The guy I was with was interested, however, as he needs a commercially available handheld SpecAn that isn’t a Chinese company.
I did pick up a few things here and there, but not much. Mostly rain discount stuff.
Here’s what I saw at the show:
A meter with the Niagra Power sticker on it.
Did I photograph this already?
I took it home. Gotta have a voltmeter at a show.
One Dollar Rain Discount. It has a burning smell.
UNIX, anyone?
110VAC single phase. Unusual.
Lots of reel-to-reel players.
A very precise balance beam scale.
Stacks of stuff, why we are here.
We left probably close to 1PM, as many of the flea market vendors had started to pack up. I skipped Sunday as there wasn’t anything I wanted to see, I was aching, and I wanted to play with some of the things I bought.
Next show is Breezeshooters in Butler, PA. See you there!
Friday turned out to be a just slightly damp day at the show, we had a little rain but it cleared off quick. We toured the flea market, and saved the buildings for Saturday due to the forecast of heavy rains. The steak tips and mashed potatoes vendor wasn’t here this year, so bourbon chicken and a banana milkshake subbed in it’s place.
This year, the mobile AM CB stuff was almost all gone save a few units here and there. Hobby-level test equipment, i.e. the EICO/Knight/Heath/etc. was almost not present, save for a bunch of those crappy RF generators that no one really wants - the bridges and tracers and things are pretty much no longer for sale. At least, not at Dayton. Of course, the piles of plastic radios and old televisions are long gone, and even the big boat anchor radios are vanishing. I think I saw maybe 1 Hallicrafters S-38 unit for sale…
Things are changing, but there was still a lot to see:
A nice A-K speaker.
A basket of Apples.
Just some audio stuffs.
A nicely restored cathedral radio.
Choke the Chicken…not here please.
An old Data Precision meter.
Many DEC Rainbow computers.
New, old-stock desoldering irons.
My favorite brand of tools?
Designed for butane flow measurements.
Some tunes for the ants.
No idea what this model was.
Someone's pride and joy, dumped in a bin.
I eventually took the scope for $1.
The old way of measuring standing waves.
Just some random HP things.
Ok, if you insist.
Loudenboomer!
Some info on the Loudenboomer.
Would you like to play a game?
It's not tourist season without a thumb.
Some military equipment.
Telephone B.C. (Before Cellular)
How many of these were made?
Moto comm analyzers.
A really nice condition scope.
Some old computing horsepower.
A really old opto counter.
This scope was in bad shape elsewhere.
Parts. I took a few transistors.
High voltage?
Used to be piles of this stuff.
These are vanishing as well.
Some more radios.
And some more radios.
A scope that was part of a school course.
Even if it was good, this showed bad.
Some sort of receiver.
A tape deck. Friend wanted it, you carry it!
Lots of these, no one wants.
Some of those funky round speakers.
I took the Sabtronics unit for a sawbuck.
Semiconductor testing devices…in peach.
A Shango Special.
I have no idea.
A table full of stuff.
Hallicrafters SX-62.
It's a radio that's a table that's a radio.
Teletypes for your 110 baud needs.
A cool old terminal.
daytonf26-terminalsettings-wereboar.jpg
The only signal tracer I saw.
A giant TRF radio.
A nice looking TRF unit.
Warm soda and melted candy anyone?
Surprising, more W-J stuff this year.
Some W-J stuff.
We spent pretty much the entire day, heading out at 4:45 a few minutes before closing. We went Saturday as well, but I skipped out on Sunday.
If you want to mail order a Dayton Hamvention ticket, now is the time! You have until May 1st, after which tickets will be held will-call at the gate. This is for domestic orders, international orders are being held will-call right now.
Mail order ticket sales have ended. All sales are now will-call.
The first ‘fest of the season has come and gone. Notably, the dearth of CB radios from the past few years has started to fade. Unfortunately, all of the older stuff has started to fade away. There was still some interesting things to be seen, and I picked up a few interesting things for later projects and checkouts.
A Commodore 64, now 40+ years old.
These machines were not cheap, that's ~800$ today.
A unique clock kit. I took it home.
I don't know, some…thing with cool meteres.
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cf2026-equipment-wereboar.jpg
Another table of random things. These are getting rare.
OSHA? No sah!
A homemade flight sim rig.
Nothing much to hear these days.
Just junk on the floor for your parts needs.
People love those deaf-as-a-post Knight radios.
Some old meters. I took the Keithly and Heathkit.
A Hong Kong special. Probably deaf when new.
I never understood those weird Mac packages.
There's the orange “T” from Coshocton.
A lamp for your porch. Welding goggles not included.
A box of probes. I took the “EICO” style for my tracer.
Rat Shack Radios for days.
These used to be $10 all day. Not no mo!
A nice RCA radio.
A 27MHz RF curing machine. Could be someone's new linear.
Look at the size of that tube.
The business end of the cure. Cures…life, probably.
Almost got this and the next one as a real challenge project.
In bad shape…
Gimme one of those S-Pecans.
These are always a lovely piece of history.
We topped the day off with a stop at Arthur Treachers’ Fish and Chips, and then headed home.
Next up is Dayton, I’m planning on going all three days this year. As a reminder, you can still mail order a ticket - internationally until Wednesday, and domestically until May 1st. See you there!
The cutoff date to purchase tickets and have them mailed to you is rapidly approaching. For international orders, you have until Wednesday, April 15th to get your order in. For domestic orders, you have until May 1st. After that - tickets are held will-call at the door. If you’re going, the time to order is now!
The Cuyahoga Falls Amateur Radio Club hamfest is happening this weekend. Located in it’s namesake of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, this show occupies most of the floor space of an old grocery that was converted to event space. I’ve always been able to get some unique stuff from this show at good prices, even during what I would consider bad years.
You can also visit what was up until last year, one of the few remaining Arthur Treacher’s restaurants. It’s literally down the road a mile or so from the event.
I’ll have pictures from the event posted ASAP.
See you there!
Cuyahoga Falls ARC 70th Annual Hamfest
Emidio & Sons Party Center
48 E. Bath Road
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 44221
Saturday April 11 2026
8A-1P
Admission $10
Early boar ticket prices end March 1st, after that the price goes from $26 to $30. This ticket gets you in for all three days - May 15th, 16th and 17th. Ordering now also gives the post office plenty of time to deliver to you.
While still about 4 months away, there’s no better time to get your ticket as you can get the early boar price of $26, mailed to you at no extra charge. This is good for all three days - May 15th, 16th and 17th.
Ticket prices increase March 1st, so there’s no time like the present to get one if you plan on attending. Get your ticket here: https://hamvention.org/purchase-tickets/
This will be near to the last post of the year here on projects, and it’s something to browse while you’re waiting for the new year holiday to start. I found out earlier this year that you can reference galleries from different points within this blogging system, and thought it would be cool to have a year-end page with all of the stuff I saw at hamfests. So…here it is! The only ones that won’t be presented in that manner is the SCARF show in May and the Central PA hamfest - both of those because there were very few pictures. They’ll be links instead.
Without further ado, here is the stuff I saw this year at hamfests:
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The Sunday Creek ARF Hamfest, Shade Ohio.
A bunch of old-school test equipment.
That 1970s blue.
Still a lot of AM CB stuff.
A big, old, Heathkit power supply.
How big can you make a 5W CB?
I didn't buy a voltmeter this time!
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The Cuyahoga Falls ARC Hamfest, Cuyahoga Falls Ohio.
A nice AOR scanner with a serial control port.
A table full of audio related stuff.
BetaMax anyone?
A giant broadcast tube.
A small capacitor checker. This went home with me.
Some cool 1970s cases. I took a woodgrain special home.
Someone had a collection of early music video.
A lot of radios and tubes.
The club has a table of cheap stuff.
A coffin set. These have become cheap.
The inside of the coffin set.
Another coffin set.
Another coffin set. Would have got this if I had room.
I bet this thing can't hear WLW next to the tower.
A giant-size signal generator.
Some radios and one of those monitor scopes.
Self explanatory.
Some old Heath stuff. Some of it's not all that useful these days.
Another small Heath scope. Took this one home, it's in great shape.
Dad's homebrew projects.
Knobs. Need I say more?
I wonder who Lafayette was channeling here?
The last Heathkit of it's type.
Who didn't have one of these?
A stack of old meters.
An old mill controller.
How many of these were made?
A nice National radio.
Pulse generators.
Various rackmount equipment.
Surprise, radios!
Even more radios.
You guessed it, radios!
You'd think this was a radio show.
An “Electric Eye” science kit.
A nice old Solar cap checker with a meter instead of an eye.
I couldn't pass this up for $5.
I see you hiding in there.
A lot of different equipment.
Just some stuff. There was a calibrator here I took with me.
I wanted the triple stack, but we couldn't come to a bargain.
A television test jig and degaussing coil.
Some oddball one-off set made in the 1970s in the USA.
I love that they used a lot of color on these.
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The TUSCO Hamfest, New Philadelphia Ohio.
Some interesting equipment. Radio gear?
Lots of vidicon tubes. Lots and lots and lots!
The early 80s still live among us.
A dual band (lol!) Lafayette Radio.
I bet you never thought you'd see more radios.
AM/FM/8-Track with a cool honeycomb face.
Radio Shack ghosts haunt us.
A couple of old Tek (tube-type) scopes. Ok price.
A mini scope. That seems high priced.
Just stuff from the CFARC guys. I took the decade box.
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The Athens County ARA Hamfest, Athens Ohio.
CD-R…once a miracle, now just junque.
The camera doesn't do the chrome justice.
An interesting passthrough counter.
A desoldering iron from the tube socket era.
An all-in-one RF test station.
Some older test gear including a cap checker in the box.
An HP 200 series generator and an old tape player.
A “Portable” multimeter.
Once of those tube unit power supplies.
An old Sony reel-to-reel tape player.
A couple of scopes. Interesting, but not needed.
An interesting Sencore tube tester.
Radios and an overpriced PACO tube tester.
A bad shot of some old gear. Would have taken the rightmost one if it had been in better shape.
One of Trio's active panel meters.
One of Heathkit's interesting lunchbox tube testers.
Some radio tuning gear.
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The Dayton Hamvention, Xenia Ohio.
Friday:
I used to work for this toxic company.
Some big rackmount amps.
Somoe old Motorola comm analyzers.
A cool looking antenna controller.
A stack of audio gear.
A cool old blue B&H oscilloscope.
Lots of parts.
Stuff is just laid out on whatever.
It's chrome plated!
Lots of walkies.
A table full of consumer era radios.
One of those high-precision Regency counters.
Someone bought a box of CRTs and related materials.
A nice Heathkit decade box. Took this home.
A dirty Hallicrafters.
Not going to break this one.
Hard to believe it's only 1.7GB.
A giant dummy load. Dummy not included.
A nice Eico harmonic distortion analyzer. Went home as a project piece.
The accompanying Eico RF generator.
An Eico scope. Tempting, but I have too many scopes.
Mail-order tickets for the 2026 Dayton Hamvention are now available. It’s the same price as last year - $26 for all three days, and this is a discount over window price. They’re generally available until the end of April. After that, they start getting held will-call for pickup day of show.
This is the premier event of it’s type, and for the longest time when I only had one slot available for shows it’s the one I chose to go to.
Dayton Hamvention 2026
Greene County Fair and Expo Center - The Whole Thing
210 Fairground Road
Xenia, OH 45385
May 18 19 20
Hours vary by day, opens at 9AM
https://hamvention.org
