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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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
While not exactly a hamfest, antique radio and electronics goes hand-in-hand with other antiques. This show is the season opener, and has a lot of vendors for that reason and because they want to move things for the holidays. It’s a good “get out of the house” after Thanksgiving, and be sure to get some chocolate-covered chips before you leave!
Scott Antique Market
Ohio Expo Center
717 East 17th Street
Columbus, Ohio 43211
Saturday November 29th: 9AM - 6PM
Sunday November 30th: 10AM - 4PM
Admission to the show is free, but the venue charges a per-car parking fee. See you there!
This is the last hamfest of the season for me. It’s usually pretty good, and this year was no exception - there was a smaller, but still decent amount of things to see. This one is far enough away that I didn’t see the same vendors as the locals.
Here’s what I saw at the show:
An in-the-box ratshack weather radio.
A nice 6L6 amplifier chassis.
A lineup of rapidly vanishing boat anchors.
A nice HO scale Big Boy engine.
I always take at least one book home.
A seldom seen Squeezebox Boom. It went home with me.
An ancient CB full of tubes.
FM is a fad, it will never last.
Cameras for your 35mm needs.
A lovely green plastic radio.
A decent induction plate at a good price.
Trash-80 Model 4. Quite unusual.
Too bad these take unobtanium batteries.
The Magnavox in the back was probably made nearby.
A mid-century lineup.
Equipment and radios.
A neat cloth-covered portable.
A good one for the S38 index.
I bet you never thought you'd see radios!
Some Select-A-Tennas. These aren't mid-century.
The soldering iron and stand went home with me.
Anyone remember those early sound devices?
A very cool, but probably unrepairable Tek rack.
Remember Wang? They made minis and WP systems.
We thought this was a MASCO unit at first.
I always pick up appliance modules when I see them.
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My fellow show-goer and I are probably going to put this one on a semi-regular basis. The long drive and relatively high admission fee (the venue charges you to park as well) factored into that decision. But, we’ll go if time allows and we feel like it, so there still may be photos next year.
The next show is the Scott Antique Market here in Columbus, at the state fairgrounds / expo center. This one is more of a, well…antique show, but old electrical equipment and antiques are really the same thing. It’s a chance to get out of the house after the holiday and wander around, as well as pick up some chocolate-covered things from the booth that usually appears at the front of the show.
See you there!
(I’ve adjusted the photographic quality a little…if they don’t look good, please let me know on mastodon or LinkedIn.)
