- 2023
- Aug
- 15
Pictures from the 2015 Dayton Hamvention
2015 was the second to last year that the Hamvention was in Dayton.
One of the things I’ve noticed after looking at pictures from the last 20 years, is how the stuff that shows up has changed. In the 90s (no pictures, sorry!) there was a lot of your typical radio gear, but also a lot of golden age computing equipment and a lot of junk PC parts. Boxes of CPUs, hard drives, boards, etc. Early 2000s, the golden age computing stuff vanished to be replaced by a lot of audio gear, CBs, things of that nature. Consumer radios and televisions from the 1950s were in high supply and not that high of demand. 10 years later, consumer electronics from the 50s, 60s, and somewhat of the 70s was plentiful, but fading. Finally, the last few years, all of that old plastic radio stuff from the middle of the 20th century seems to have dried up, to be replaced with gear from the 80s (what’s still working,) and a lot of test equipment from the 60s and 70s, and some from the 80s.
As always, there are plenty of the normal “things” you find at a show like this - old Hallicrafters gear, R390s, etc. - but there’s nothing to listen to so they don’t go as quickly. But they’re still there.
What surprised me about the last show was the lack of those little $100-150 DSP SDR radios that are all over the online shopping sites. Who knows why, maybe they just aren’t as popular with the amateur crowd.
Here’s the pictures I took of the 2015 show, you can see lots of 1950s-1960s radio gear, and some oddball things that have vanished from view these days. It was an excellent day, warm, sunny, and as always, filled with people tripping over the charmingly broken pavement at Hara - hoping the sewer lines didn’t explode again!
My camera here wasn’t the best, and had a lot of trouble with anything that wasn’t full sun. A few of the pictures are slightly blurry, so my apologies in advance.
.
This is a panoramic shot of one of the booths. I believe this guy had a bunch of equipment from the Western Electric North Carolina Works, but I can’t be sure. Some of that stuff tends to all run together.
Finally, the stuff I brought home. A CountyCom radio that was purchased from a dealer that was local to me(!), a book on 555s, some solder, LEDS, tape, and an Atari 2600 joystick. The radio was probably the most expensive item out of all of the stuff, and I still have it sitting on my desk at home. (Pay no attention to the biscuit mix in the background, that didn’t come from Dayton!)
While I do kind of miss the old venue, it’s time had come and gone, in part due to the owner’s neglect. It just seemed to attract a slightly different kind of vendor - Mendelson’s didn’t attend the Xenia show for the few years they had left, and some of the big “stuff on racks” vendors vanished. I’m not going to cry for the latter, however, those guys were a lot more expensive than they should have been, and I’m guessing companies like Rigol put them out of business.
Regardless, things change, and the new venue certainly has better food!
The next show is the Findlay Radio Club event at the Hancock County Fairgrounds in Findlay (of course!) This is always a good show assuming it doesn’t rain. Good stuff shows up without the prices you see at the bigger shows. Stay tuned for those pictures, as well as some from Fort Wayne if I can drag myself up there in November. I also have a few pieces of equipment on the bench, and will be talking about those as soon as I can.
Stay tuned for more stuff.