Had some bad storms very early in the morning but no rain during the hamfest. Of course grass was mushy and wet and mud here and there. Very hot upper 80s. Fair number of old broadcast sets. Lots of vintage communications receivers. Vintage and modern ham gear. Bought a few items today. Pro-2006 scanner for 15$ so I can monitor military UHF. Clean Shure 450 mic for 10$ Pretty nice EV 664 with cable for 20$. Drake wattmeterfor 70. Pace solder/desolder station for 70. Odds and ends for a buck. Got exhausted tromping around in the heat and dragging stuff back to the remote parking area. Ride the school bus. One more day if I can stand it. Eyeballing a nice Federal receiver but not sure where I would put it. Maybe settle for one of the Federal crystal sets. Two years off due to ..... and I forgot how much slogging it is to get around there. Fun. And pain.

I was there today as well. Picked up a couple of LS-3 Signal Corp speakers and a handful of other parts. Saw a few nice Hallicrafters, though way over priced. Its the first day of the show though and sellers won't be offering the good deals just yet.

Not too muddy but hot and just enough sun to get burnt. I had fun though and it was good to be back.

The guidebook they hand out used to show a map of the vendors inside. They had a list of them and then you crossed their number to the layout maps of numbers. THis time I saw the numbers on a diagram of the buildings, but did not see a list of the vendors. SO last night I had to go to the website of Hamvention and search for a list of attending vendors, and booths, that is not obvious. I guess I will wing it today as usual. See if I can use up all my money. Only so much money to use. Bypass some stuff and wish you got it, later, or buy too much and run out of cash for that last amazing discovery. Ahh the quandry.

....take more $$, or be prepared to mortgage the car if necessary

There was something at the ARRL website about an app to find dealers.

The closest I ever got was the Rochester hamfest, so I wasn't paying attention.

I don't feel that I missed much bargains, at least in stuff I was willing to haul away on the bus. I think the Hamvention weather curse is still intact. HOT HOT on Fri, after rain, Hot hot on Sat, then violent storms, and better weather Sunday but I was not brave enough to challenge the presumed mud mire, after the flood inducing rain storms on Sat. Monday morning, it is 47 degrees here in the area 20 miles from Xenia. Supposed to be mild and dry today. They just missed it by that much again.

I suppose they should investigate a venue that has outdoor shelters, similar to what the Kutztown show does. It does rain there lol.... DID in fact for a lot of this past show, but the impact is minimal. Even if you are in a booth on the outside "wall" of the pavilion, a tarp simply hung from the beams there will stop most of the rain from hitting your tables, and you can drop the tarp when the skis clear up again.

Dayton, or central Ohio, MUST have something available that would work in this fashion... perhaps even the fairgrounds in Columbus, or the IX center in Cleveland... gotta be something in Cinci, or somewhere else around here, that would fill the bill.

Maybe Hamvention, Kutztown, et cetera should consider merging their forces, adding vintage audio, and attract a lot more visitors....... although that would require many show planners to cooperate lol

It was a good event as usual. I wore flip-flops on Friday morning and was covered in a film of mud.
Didn't buy a single piece, but instead loaded up on parts and made a couple new connections.

The thing about the Hamvention is that the food is just awful. Carnival-type stuff - cheese-fries, corndogs, etc. I packed some healthy stuff in the morning, then had some bourbon chicken from one of the vendors.

Bad food? I had the half pound mushroom swiss burger when I got really hungry and was satiated for many hours afterwards. Carny food from a tralier! Yum! They considered venues for the Hamvention a long time before choosing those fairgrounds. Remember it is the Dayton Hamvention, affiliated with the Dayton club. Moving to Columbus or Cleveland or Cincinnati or such is not in the cards. Especially since it is staffed with local club volunteers that would not want to drive really far. Well the outdoor space flea market is always gonna be in the weather unless like some people do, put covers up over the tables for sun as well as rain. The only advantage HARA had was it was all paved, more or less. It is the fairgrounds the rest of the year. They would not let them pave the horse track I bet. Another consideration of other venues is cost and availaibility. There is a venue that I thought would be ideal and is paved outside but a bit further away. I think those owners probably priced themselves too high.

I too visited the Hamvention this year and I bought a spot in the flea market at the last minute. Wasn't the best spot but far from the worst. I had a couple of Collins receivers, an R389 and an R725 which generated a lot of interest, and a bunch of picture takers but I brought them home with me. Did sell a nice equipment cabinet I bought from Steve a few years ago but no longer needed.

I stopped at the Voice of America museum near Cincinatti and picked up a Collins 30S1 amplifier, but that was a prearranged deal. They had a lot of stuff for sale there but the items were grossly overpriced.

I got some parts I needed, a DMR handi talkie radio (TYT MD-UV380) for an excellent price, and found an ARC-5 receiver that covers the broadcast band. They are not very common and I am going to have fun converting it with some kits provided by N3LLL. If you are in to these radios his kits are outstanding and there is a video showing them and the end product.

While I much preferred the previous location at the HARA arena with all its warts the Xenia version of the Dayton Hamvention was a lot of fun and it well worth going to. I was not looking for any old radios, having been to Kutztown the week before, and I am heading off to RadioActivity in Maryland in just over a week. If you like super flea markets then Dayton/Xenia is worth the visit.

Joe