This is always an excellent show, and is a “Dayton without the Dayton prices.” If you’re looking for something and it’s not here, chances are you didn’t need it!
Tickets, as always, are $10, and can be bought in advance (print it yourself) online. This year, it falls on Sunday, September 11th, and is usually a hot day. See you there!
Where:
Hancock County Fairgrounds
1017 E. Sandusky St., Findlay, OH 45840
This year’s show was a bit muted - the sky threatened rain all day, and it did rain in several locations around the city. Fortunately, it held off at the Aladdin Shrine Temple, but still kept things low key. More vendors showed up as the morning went on, and the inside of the building was still fairly well packed as usual.
There was enough to keep me and a friend busy for almost 3 hours, and we found ourselves going back and forth as new people arrived. A few things I probably should have walked out with, but I have to be kind of choosy because I have too much junk already. Oh well…there’s always Findlay in a month!
A Mac Plus with a SCSI HDD (kind of buried.)
A Wonderful old speaker. Had a transformer and Selenium rectifier in it as well.
A small Panasonic radio in excellent condition. Just a minor amount of battery gunk.
A relatively new Triplett VOM. No 22.5VDC batteries here!
A Precision Tube Tester. Need to break down and buy one soon.
A Rat Shack Iron Stand. Still had the receipt in it!
A SP0256-AL2 Allophone Processor Speech Chip in Rat Shack pack.
A loop and voltage calibrator. My co-shopper bought this.
The threat of rain kept things low key this year. Inside was still packed.
A signal generator made with fire bottles.
That Echophone radio in the middle wanted to go home with me, I had to say no.
A Skyrider Jr. Took this for $25. It works……………sort of……..
Just radio stuffs. Bought a bunch of weather radios here.
Need to vary some AC? A lot of it? Here you go!
This oddball had a military contract number on back.
The Columbus, Ohio Hamfest is happening this year on August 6th, same location as last year. It’s usually pretty good, and I’ve always pulled an excellent deal or two out of there.
When: August 6th, 2022. 8AM to 1PM or so
Where: Aladdin Shrine Temple - 1801 Gateway Circle, Grove City OH 43213
After being closed for two years, the amount of goodies that showed up this year didn’t disappoint. There was so much stuff it was hard to see it all in one day, and I missed some photos I should have grabbed. I probably should have went Saturday as well, but one day of this stuff is plenty - and there’s more shows to come.
It was hard to resist dragging junk home, but I only wound up with one large piece of equipment. It appears to be fully functional, so I’m happy with the $20 I spent on it. The rest of my purchases were books and tubes and some odds n ends, nothing really major.
As always, this was an experience from the sheer amount of stuff that shows up. Hopefully, next year will be just as good - see you there!
We thought it would rain the whole day.
But it cleared off.
Bought a Mikrotik hAP AC from here.
Computer gear is a staple.
Assorted items.
Lots of ISA cards.
A lot of unique old electronics devices.
10kV Oil Capacitors. Forbidden touch terminals!
Free stuff. I took some of the books home.
When you need a lot of power.
I love the front panels on these generators.
Wouldn't be complete without Bourbon Chicken.
Or some steak tips!
Speakers.
A carousel 8-track player.
Stuff. Lots of it.
They kind of did this out of the box.
A beautiful Philco Tombstone.
A R-388/URR Radio.
A BC-312-N Radio in great shape.
Assembly equipment.
A Heathkit Ignition Analyzer. One Owner!
Ubiquiti Rocket Dishes.
Regency scanners, must be a billion out there.
An Echophone (Made by Hallicrafters?) EC-1B.
A Mueler Bridge for precise resistance measurements.
Tunable filters.
W-J Equipment bonanza.
A cool looking tube tester and other equipment.
Sometimes it's about socializing.
A friend bought a radio from the stack.
A Hammarlund “Super Pro” radio and supply.
A Hammarlund SP-400-SX radio and supply.
Someone took a very old electrical panel apart.
The tube guy from Indiana.
Said to be from a screen-share startup company.
A camera that's seen some action.
Just a lot of equipment.
The two meters in front came home with me.
A Browning Eagle.
A Hot Wheels Radar gun.
Audio equipment. My EAS-1 came from here.
Old radio equipment was in supply.
A NOS TV-7D/U Tube Tester. $1200.00…..
Radios…radios everywhere.
Said to be the best use for these by the vendor.
My friend bought the broadcast clock in the middle.
An analog computer.
The only use for old hard drives.
An Atwater-Kent radio with their lovely ship logo.
I was really surprised how good this show was. Here’s my haul of junk treasure from the show. I took $200 and spent pretty much that. There were some other things I was eyeing, but had to leave them as they were mostly cool toys that had limited to no use. The only thing I wish had been there was a battery vendor so I could pick up a new battery pack for my two-way.
This is a show, barring other commitments, that I will attend next year as well.
Pictures of the main event coming shortly.
An Eico VTVM. Just a nice, big meter.
An RF Generator. Will replace a cheap unit that doesn't.
An Eico Capacitance Bridge for spare parts.
An HP DVM with bubble LEDs, and a wierd power supply. Both cheap!
An almost new Weller solder gun, a nice Panavise PCB unit, and my poor Yaesu FT-60 in the background wishing I found a new battery for it.
A neat RCA reference book and some parts from the dollar bins.
A portable Superior Tube Tester. It looks to have never been used.
My ticket. I'll stick this in a piece of equipment.
I wasn’t sure about attending this one, but I have to say that it turned out to be an excellent small show. I planned on an hour or two, but it rapidly turned into a “stay until almost close” event. There was quite a lot to see, a good crowd of people, and as always, I brought home way too much junk treasure. This is an event that I’ll probably put on the attendance schedule for next year assuming we’re not all afraid of the sun coming up in the morning like last year.
The only thing this show didn’t have (beyond a few parts vendors) was a vendor selling new equipment. But that’s ok, that can be had elsewhere. We’re here for the good junk. And there was a lot of it.
Findlay was an excellent show, which I’ve come to expect. The only year I’ve seen a limited turnout was during a very wet day, and even that wasn’t too bad.
I concentrated mostly on tubes this time around, picking up things I thought I’d need to keep old equipment going. A few odds and ends including an old AC Line meter made it home with me, but by far the largest purchase was a giant HP RF synthesizer that kept the back of my car from blowing away.
The pictures are by no means everything there, just what seemed interesting to me.
The dolly won't blow away with that Tek scope on it.
An old school tube checker for a very limited set of tubes.
Cheap stuff on the ground.
More cheap stuff.
Even more cheap stuff.
Oh look, it's a portable electric house fire.
A neat old radio.
Random flea market goods.
More goodies.
I bought the small meter with the termnals on the side.
After two years of the Earth making mountains out of molehills, Breezeshooters Hamfest is happening in 2022.
Breezeshooters is a moderate size hamfest in Prospect PA, located just outside of Butler, PA. Located at the Big Butler Fairgrounds, this show usually has enough vendors to keep you busy for a few hours, if not more, and always has some good stuff to take home, without the “Dayton” prices.
I usually punctuate this trip with a visit to the Monroe Hotel Restaurant in Butler, at 400 E Jefferson St, Butler, PA 16001.
Where:
Big Butler Fairgrounds Route 422 Between I79 and Butler
1127 New Castle Road
Prospect, PA 16052
When:
June 4th and 5th, 2022. Usually opens fairly early.
