I’d never attended this show, but was pleasantly pleased with the turnout. There were perhaps a few dozen vendors and a packed house of visitors in the old gymnasium of the converted school. Quite a bit to look at, and prices were really good. I managed to bring home some good things for a total of $10, almost spending more on drinks and snacks on the way home! I didn’t think the weather was going to cooperate, but it turned out to be just a bit slushy, cold, and windy.
We wandered the aisles for about an hour, taking some time to stop and look at the old photos on the walls from the building’s time as a school, talking to some of the vendors, and digging through boxes of stuff. Since this is so close and easy to get to, I’ll probably attend next year as well - weather permitting of course!
A bunch of books. The ECG manual went home with a friend.
Some rat shack remainders. I picked up the cable.
Lots of AM CB showing up right now, including these old phone-style units.
Parts, and some rat shack 300 ohm clip on connectors. Got these for the nostolgia factor.
A friend pulls a microcassette unit from a dollar bin.
Some test equipment. The (working) signal tracer went home for $2.
More random equipment.
Even more equipment. The power supply was unique enough to go home with me for $2.
And I have to say it was a pretty good little show. The weather wasn’t planning on agreeing on the ride down, but it turned out to be just a skiff of snow and cold, windy weather. There were maybe a couple dozen vendors, and a packed house full of guests to the point where cars had to shuffle so others could leave.
While I only spent an hour there, I walked out with some good stuff as did my fellow show-goer. I’m working on processing pictures, and will post those soon.
There wasn’t quite as much at the December show as opposed to the November show, but there was still a lot to look at. I picked up an oil lamp to match one I already have, and took the Humble Oil tiger with the horse pee stickers home. The stickers came off with some coaxing from a heat gun, so I’m pleased with that. My fellow show-goer bought some cheesy Christmas LPs because you can’t have Christmas without random “Why the eff is that?” records playing on the turntable. A Stoneman Christmas, anyone?
The next show is in January. There’s a small hamfest happening about the same time, so I will probably go to that instead, unless they are happening on different weekends (which they are!)
A Columbus, OH made institutional record player.
An old school portable record cutter for on-the-spot records.
RAWR DRAGONS!
When you need to ship your eggs.
Ring ring ring ring antique phones.
Here piggy piggy! I'd totally hang this in a rec room.
I try to plan out the shows I want to attend early, that way I have time set aside and don’t need to move things around. This is my tentative list (no means exhaustive for even Ohio shows!) that I may try to attend, weather and time permitting. I’ll post more about the shows as they approach and dates are set.
Dayton, of course, is a will-go no matter what. See you there!
Sunday Creek Amateur Radio Federation Hamfest
Shade Community Center
2380 Old U.S. 33
Shade, OH 45776
January 14 2024
8A-2P-ish
Admission $6
https://www.arrl.org/hamfests/sunday-creek-amateur-radio-federation-hamfest-3
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … ek-arf-hamfest-2024/
Cuyahoga Falls Amateur Radio Club Hamfest
Emidio & Sons Party Center
48 E. Bath Road
Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221
April 13 2024
8A - 1PM
https://sites.google.com/cfarc.org/cfarc/hamfest
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … ahoga-falls-hamfest/
TUSCO ARC Hamfest
Commercial Building at the Tuscarawas County Fairgrounds
295 South Tuscarawas Ave
Dover, OH 44622
April 27 2024
8A - 1PM
https://www.w8zx.net/hamfest
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … 4-tusco-arc-hamfest/
Breezeshooter’s Hamfest
Butler, PA
Butler Farm Show (Kind of a fairgrounds thing)
625 Evans City Rd
Butler, PA 16001
June 9 2024
8A - 2PM
https://breezeshooters.org/ns/
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … ooters-2024-hamfest/
Van Wert (OH) Hamfest
Van Wert County Fairgrounds
1055 S. Washington Street
Van Wert, OH 45891
July 21 2024
8A - When it’s done
https://w8fy.org/hamfest.html
Event photos: Sorry, didn’t make it to this one, life got in the way.
Columbus (OH) Hamfest
Aladdin Shrine Center
1801 Gateway Cir
Grove City, OH 43123
August 3 2024
8A - 1PMish
https://aladdinshrine.org/hamfest/
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … lumbus-2024-hamfest/
Johnstown Swapper’s Day
Johnstown Community Sportsmen’s Club
7357 Sportsman Club Rd NW
Johnstown, OH 43031
Labor Day Weekend (Fri Sat Sun)
7A - 6P
https://jcscohio.org/swappers-day/
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … nstown-swappers-day/
Findlay Radio Club Hamfest
Hancock County Fairgrounds
1017 E. Sandusky St.
Findlay, Ohio 45839
September 8 2024
8A - 1PM-ish
https://www.findlayradioclub.org/
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … o-club-2024-hamfest/
The Cleveland Hamfest and Computer Show
Berea Fairgrounds, Eastland Entrance
160 Eastland Rd
Berea, OH 44107
September 22 2024
8A - 12P
https://www.hac.org/
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … 4-cleveland-hamfest/
The Scioto Valley Amateur Radio Club Hamfest
Pike County Fairgrounds
311 Mill Street
Piketon, OH 45661
October 5 2024
8A - 12P
https://www.arrl.org/hamfests/scioto-valley-amateur-radio-club-hamfest-2
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … o-club-hamfest-2024/
MARC Hamfest
Military Air Preservation Society Hanger (MAPS)
2620 International Parkway
Green, OH 44232
October 27 2024
8A - 1P
http://w8np.net
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … e-marc-2024-hamfest/
Fort Wayne Hamfest
Allen Country War Memorial Coliseum
4000 Parnell Ave
Fort Wayne, IN 46805
November 16, 17 2024
Hours vary by day, opens at 9AM
https://www.acarts.com/hfmain.htm
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … -fort-wayne-hamfest/
Scott Antique Market - November
Ohio Expo Center (State Fairgrounds)
717 E 17th Ave
Columbus, OH 43211
November 30 and December 1
Hours vary by day, check before you go.
https://www.scottantiquemarket.com/
Event photos: https://wereboar.com … cott-antique-market/
Scott Antique Market - December
Ohio Expo Center (State Fairgrounds)
717 E 17th Ave
Columbus, OH 43211
December 21 and 22
Hours vary by day, check before you go.
https://www.scottantiquemarket.com/
Event photos: Sorry, didn’t make it to this one - work related things got in the way.
Swapper’s Day and the Scott Antique Market aren’t really hamfests, but you still get a lot of electrical goods at these shows. Swapper’s Day is a large flea market, and Scott is an antique show. The November show is the season opener for the antique market, and you’ll usually have the greatest number of vendors at this show - and will have the best selection of merchandise.
All of the shows have announced time and date, but check before you go!
This show takes place monthly at the Ohio Expo Center (State Fairgrounds) and runs from November to April. There’s generally not a lot of electrical goods here, but this time I was surprised. A lot of radios and other technology related goodies showed up. I suspect this is in part due to the show being the first one of the season, and being close to the holidays - everyone is looking for that perfect gift.
While not all of the pictures I took were of electrical things, I found the stuff to be interesting (or strange!) enough to take a picture of. I’ll probably hit next month’s show as well, so stay tuned!
The American Locomotive Works lineup in picutures.
A “Bandmaster Senior” transmitter with VFO.
A Ma Bell special.
The Columbus (Ohio) buggy works.
Ooooooo cooties! Giant ones, no less!
Honey in various gag gift bottles.
A “Dictograph.” Looks like a multi-station shop phone.
A big wooden dragon.
When snack makers go bad.
A nice Motorola Electrostatic Television. Don't plug that in!
Apparently meant for export to the USSR.
Better call Batman!
A “Chinese” radio from the United Lan-Sing company.
A light for home film, each bulb is 375W!
A collection of vintage telephones.
Cylinder players.
A couple more cylinder players.
A nicely restored Edison Home with a rude yet historically important cylinder.
A “victrola” type record player.
A Clarion receiver.
A couple of random radios.
Listen to the worn out clocks go clunkclunkclunkclunk.
A radio with a Bulova clock.
Car radios from who knows where.
A Philco “Mystery” wireless remote.
A Rheem Reel-to-Reel player.
Cool, but ultimately useless analog television.
A TI 99/4A still in the box. Was abandonware when new!
This year’s show seemed to be a bit smaller than normal, but it may have been just my imagination. Regardless, there was a lot to see and the show was, as usual, busy. I tried to limit what I brought home to things that were on my want list, and I mostly did so - only diverging for a book that looked interesting. I’ve written about one of the pieces, a meter from Heathkit, so check out the posts just previous to this one for a look at that piece.
A stack of audio gear.
A nice, unmodified BC-314 radio.
A Betamax player under some audio gear.
A Craig 408 mini reel recorder.
The inside of the Craig 408.
A dual well cassette deck that went home with a friend.
A stack of 1970s CB gear. Love the big lamps on these.
Two vintages of HP frequency counters.
Rockbound Radio.
A DeVry oscilloscope.
A big agricultural drone.
A Rat Shack DX-150B radio. It went home with me for $50.
A neat Hickok 900C VTVM.
A 70s-ish? Heathkit Sig Gen.
When you need to hear it, here it is.
A cool old HP scope with 70s color buttons.
An HP 4000 VTVM with a dB scale.
A couple of meters. The IM-1212 (blue) went home with me.
A couple of old-school meters. The 260 went home with a friend.
A rather unusual Phase-Angle meter for 3-phase systems.
Calling MAin-2 2222!
Radios from a GM car - could be removed and played on AA batteries!
Random Radios.
A selection of radios, testers, and speakers.
A neat direction finding radio.
A Hallicrafters rig and other things.
More random radios and a turntable.
Radios and meters. The meter was cool but required odd batteries.
Radios and speakers.
A RCA VTVM, pre-VIZ.
Random reel-to-reel player.
A rather unusual “Sailor” radio.
Random solar cell. Always find one of these at a show.
A couple of Sony reel tape players.
A stack of miscellaneous gear.
A microcontroller test platform in the shape of a game device.
Books n things.
Just stuff
Random test equipment.
Random things.
Televisions and radios and just stuff.
Random meters and a Superradio III.
More things from the table above.
A NIXIE meter right in the middle.
Parts is Parts.
Another Simpson meter and parts.
A Televideo terminal made to look like a DEC VT100.
A Shango Special.
Power adapter, anyone?
A piece of equipment made by a (probably) now silent key.
I was quite surprised, there were a lot of electrical and other related technology items for sale at the show. While none of them really wanted to go home with me, they were fun to look at and talk about with the vendors. I’ll probably head out there for the December show as well, perhaps the holiday shopping season will bring the really odd stuff out of the woodwork.
I’m currently processing the pictures from the show, so stay tuned!
The Findlay Radio Club 2023 Hamfest was just a bit muted this year - the skies threatened rain but none appeared, so there were quite a few vendors. This year, a lot of late-model Hallicrafters SW radios showed up, I assume because people who purchased them in the 1960s are finally letting them go for various reasons. Unfortunately, with nothing to listen to on shortwave except Radio Havana, these radios aren’t of much use other than as a curiosity. The proliferation of SDR boxes hasn’t helped, considering you can get a direct entry radio that sounds good and runs on a common LiIon prismatic cell for a bill.
There was plenty of good stuff to look at regardless, and some good things to take home. Here’s my memories of the show, some of which were of unique pieces where the photo ended up on other sites.
One of those shots was a relatively rare signal generator from a long-dead company, Measurements Corporation of Boonton, NJ. According to the site admins, this was the only in-the-flesh image they’ve seen. I was happy to contribute to the community’s knowledge base. Check that entry out here: https://www.radiomus … rd_generator_82.html
Now, on to the good stuff!
A lot of old car audio devices.
An old HP 1.8GHz SpecAn. Nice display, but the $100 cheapies do the same thing nowadays.
An old Motorola plug scanner antenna. Took it home, so old the plastic was stuck to the metal.
A box of Atari 800XL computers, a drive, modem and etc.
Carbon Comp resistors. Great for resistive fuses, some went home with me.
One of GM's oddball radios, and some misc goodies.
A Radiola 24, or as a friend said “It's a DIY Television!”
A dynamotor for a radio device. Yeah, that's 33A input current!
An electrostatic television and some radios.
Some old, but expensive (for it's time) equipment.
One of the many radios of this type that showed up this year.
The “just lay it on the ground” goodies vendor.
More ground goodies.
A meter that's dedicated to testing the particular items in a horizontal circuit.
A box of old Atari-style joysticks.
Meters. Meters everwhere!
This vendor had a wide range of military radios and accessories.
No reasonable offer is refused!
A neat old Velleman scope, but these like to blow their inputs. No power, no see, no buy.
A portable podium with amplifier. I remember these from high school.
A neat old radio with a just-as-old clock on top.
A random radio back down on a table of tubes.
My fellow show-goer checks out a record player.
A piece of gear designed for RTTY service.
An old DuMont scope and a unique signal generator.
Heathkit scopes and 80s radios.
More shortwave radios.
Lots of genuine switchcraft plugs.
This vendor was keeping the show grounds from blowing away.
Rain threatened but didn’t invade this year, so there was a decent number of vendors and some good stuff to see. Pictures from the show are coming soon, I’m processing them and hope to have them up next week.
I find myself bringing home less and less each year, as I’ve already accumulated as many boat anchors as I can handle, and I didn’t see the few I’d like to acquire at the show. I limited myself to some meters, some oddball parts, and a few collectible items that looked interesting. Nothing really special, just neat.
A couple of Weston meters, an antenna for a scanner, some carbon resistors, a weather radio clock, some wall warts that were 50 cents each, and a couple of old UK radio magazines. I’ll probably go back for more magazines, since that guy was local to my home area.
I usually don’t take any photos at this event, because it’s just a general flea market - but things of interest do show up there from time to time. While these items aren’t all related to electronics, I still found them interesting enough to snap a shot.
Someone found some a variety of late 1960s and early 1970s Skidoo snowmobiles and brought them for sale.
A “Mercedes Gazelle” built on a VW chassis. The Bug was a popular platform for modification and, at one point, you could make it look like just about anything you wanted.
A nice Sparton 667 radio. Everything was present, and the chassis looked unmodified and clean. It had what appeared to be a number of gel electrolytics, so hopefully whomever brought this home doesn’t just plug it in.
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I didn’t get the model of this Zenith console, but the chassis was similarly clean and unmodified. The record player had been removed, however, but that’s not a terrible loss - chances are the stylus was long dead and unobtanium.
The rest of the trip was just your standard flea-market stuff, and I ended up going home with a small album of 78s and a few tools.
