[Boatanchors] Belton Swapfest

Sun Oct 7 11:39:54 EDT 2012

Thanks Kees for the great report.  

Wish I was there!

73, John Dilks, K2TQN

-.-

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kees & Sandy" <windy10605 at juno.com>
To: tetrode at googlegroups.com, boatanchors at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Sunday, October 7, 2012 11:07:52 AM
Subject: [Boatanchors] Belton Swapfest

The Fall 2012 Belton Swapmeet is in the rearview mirror. It was, as usual, an excellent event, full parking lot, and fantastic cool weather (I really liked that part).......and no rain. Lots of familiar faces and friends to greet. There could have been a few more sellers inside but the outside parking lot was pretty packed.

I casually asked a friend of mine who has been going up for many, many years, if he was going up Friday or Saturday. Friday ?? he asked. I said sure, many deals are bought straight off the trailer on Friday ......many of those DO show up on other tables Saturday when the large crowds are present. Well, he came on Friday and blew his socks off .....I haven't seen him that enthusiastic in years.

Looks like the "item of the day" was the oscilloscope and Heathkit gear.....they were everywhere this year. The usual qty of boatanchors and a number of ARC5 units ......some had high prices, some didn't. The thing I didn't see this year was a single Radio Controlled airplane.....there are usually 1 or 2 for sale.

The dog event show going on Saturday in the other half of the Belton Expo Center with a dirt floor is a VAST improvement over when they have an event involving well fed horses.

One of the the really spectacular sales on Friday and Saturday was when the guy from Houston pulled in with his 16ft trailer loaded up about 4ft with repair stuff from Houston Amateur Radio (they never could throw anything away and the storage rental fees finally caught up with reality). They decided to clean out a small warehouse of older repair radios and radio repair parts, chassis, front panels, plug-in modules, LPFs, PA sectons, power supplies, etc, etc. I have never seen so many FT-101 radios in my life, Kenwood, Yaesu, Icom, Alinco, etc, etc. Some of the Friday ones were basically complete, others had major parts missing, and some were just parts......HF rigs, VHF rigs, UHF rigs, HTs  and on and on. Needless to say piles of people were all over the trailer in no time at all. Prices were VERY reasonable with most anything going for $5 at 10AM on Saturday. I can't count the number of times I went back to look (and do a little digging). I really think Temple Amateur Radio
  Club (who put on the event) ought to have charged him more because of the fun he was having. ......Incredible.

I "didn't have anything to bring up.....;o)" so gave my table (always the same one) to a buddy who brought a bunch of his stuff to sell. Another friend brought up two large boxes of 12V plug-in power suplies which moved pretty well after I adjusted the price the "FREE". I told them if they started pulling on one and it was tangled up with 2 or 3 others they had to take all 3. The thought of knotting some of the cords together crossed my mind. I was successful and at about 12 Noon on Saturday, they were all gone.

Richard, from New Caney, TX, was there in his ever present overalls, riding around on his mobility scooter and towing a wagon of stuff he had bought back to his pickup and trailer. He said one of his best buys was another electric mobility scooter from a guy who "got to the point of walking again and he didn't need it any more".  Now there is a good story.

Since my old 55ft heavy, tilt/crank-up, tower needs to be replaced.....did I mention heavy ?, I was looking for aluminum towers. I found a military surplus heavy duty aluminum tubular crank-up in the parking lot. this one was a 40ft tower consisting of 8 five ft sections where you crank up a section, insert the next one and continue cranking. Really cool and I was told several surplus sellers had them at Dayton. He was asking $300 and wouldn't take $200. I ended up buying 2 sets of 40ft aluminum poles (also 8 five ft sections and guy rope stuff) for $60 total. 

To put the icing on the cake, one of my local friends said they called him when he was halfway home to tell him he had won the Grand Prize radio.....pretty cool event.

73 Kees K5BCQ 

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