[Milsurplus] NEAR-Fest Musings

[J. Forster]

On Friday and Saturday the semi-annual NEAR-Fest was held at the Deerfield
Fairgrounds in NH. This event was fka Hoss Traders or just Deerfield.

To the wuzzies who were deterred by the cloudy skies and threat of rain...
 you blew it. Friday, between 8 and 5 it lightly spotted a couple of
times. You lost. LoL. I was not able to attend Saturday.

Anyway, there were a number of interesting things, including:

TCS-12 Transmitter w/o case but with an auxiliar chassis w/ two
dynamotors. The transmitter look unhacked, but was very dusty. To my eye,
the PS looked like it was not home brew, but I am no expert on the set.
Asking price was $150. It sold, but I don't know the sale price.

The same guy was also selling a lot of over 15 assorted ARC-5 receivers
and transmitters, for $50 for the lot. Those didn't last long.

In the real of more modern stuff, there were some TA-312 phones, and a
GRA-39 remote control unit for radios.

The real prize was a GRC-193A w/. the two level mounting rack, almost all
cables, and a full set of HC manuals. Stupidly, I did not buy it, but it
would have been logistically hard to deal with.

Oddly, there were fewer tube vendors and little modern high end test gear.
I guess eBay is siphoning that stuff off.

FWIW,
-John