[HBR] Dallas HamCom

[windy10605 at juno.com]

This year HamCom was held in Plano (just north of Dallas)

HamCom this year was pretty good but had terrible parking with a remote
overflow lot and too small of a shuttle bus. The line was 30-50 people
long and the bus could carry 15 (they had 2 busses). Also it's real
difficult to transport items via this route. We found closer in parking
but one of the areas people used was tow away. 

The seminars looked very good but none of our group went to any (not
enough time) and wanted to spend most of the time in the swapmeet areas.
The inside individual swapfest was too small, the big vendors did OK but
they only had 48 table available inside which we thought would be a major
problem. However, the problem was solved by having tables in the
courtyard and around the outside of the building where it was total shade
....not bad at all. The outside parking lot area was about as large as
previous HamComs and consisted of 2 double parking lot rows ....and they
had another double row available....and it had shade trees which is quite
an improvement over previous HamComs. There were also VERY few non HAM
sale items ....hats off to the organizers (computer parts, jewelry, etc)
....the cookie table counts as HAM. Since they also opened for most of
Friday and we were only there Saturday, I talked to Richard Cobb who is
the guy who buys anything, especially boatanchors   .........and stores
them. As we sat on the tailgate of his pickup he said it's one of the
best HAM swapmeets he'd been to and he goes to ALL of them. He said
Friday "there were lots" of 75A, 32A, 75S, 32S Collins equipment, Johnson
stuff, RME 6900, SX-28, Halli, etc equipment. In the back of his pickup
were 3 Valients, 2 Rangers, the SX-28, a 75A3, and numerous others ....it
was 3/4 full under his camper top ......again. There was one young guy
selling to contents of a freshly cleaned out classic --leaky-- barn with
critters ....piles of ARC-5 units in "good" to "terrible" to "chassis
only" for $5 or so. When I got there Saturday at 9AM it was pretty well
picked over but bought 7 units for $3 each. He had buckets of variables,
oil capacitors, trimmers, transformers, chokes, etc. I walked off with a
bag of variables and IF cans for $10. There was one guy walking off with
a large grundgey chassis he bought for $1 (that was his starting price)
......the chassis had a couple of transformers ......and a cylindrical
Collins PTO !. At 12Noon Saturday he auctioned off what was left (1/2
pickup full) starting at $20 total. When I went by at 12:30 the area was
clean. I saw two Johnson matchboxes for $75 each (one was like new),
SB-102 through HW-101 for $190 to $50, Handbooks 50s and 60s for $5 each.
Most of the Collins radios were at today's ebay prices but there were
some real deals on Friday.  

73 Kees K5BCQ