[Milsurplus] Dayton day one

[Ray Fantini]

Couple quick observations about Dayton this year, first the weather
today was perfect. Bright sunshine and temperature in the high seventies
all day. Second, only about two thirds of the tailgating lot was full.
Lot of empty spaces. Will see if more sellers show up tomorrow. Prices
appear to be about ten to twenty percent higher this year then last.
Lots of R-390 receivers in the $250 to $500 range, ARC -5 sets are all
costing around $30 to $40 for ratty sets, did not see any clean
unmodified sets. Only saw a couple R-388 and 51J series receivers priced
around the same amount as R-390 receivers. Myself I bought an ARC-38
with the 180L tuner, control head and very scares frequency setting book
for $200.00, lot for those but have a soft spot for that radio. Strange
thing this year people don’t want to reduce prices, don’t know why but
that’s what’s happening. Oddly though people who bought my stuff did not
haggle so who knows what’s going on? What I thought was the best deal
today is one of the surplus dealers is selling a huge trailer of
equipment for $1 per pound. Picked up a couple PSM-37 meters with all
accessories for $10 (ten pounds) and an APN-7 Loran for Mr. Smith for
$30 (thirty pounds) and saw lots of other test and avionics on the
trailer. There is a new ARN-7 with the tape wrap with shock mount that I
almost bought, but bought too much junk today.
One of the best things about Dayton is the ability to sit and talk with
people you only see once or twice a year and spent a lot of time doing
that, speaking of this I stopped by William Perry’s booth and bought a
test set for the newer Collins ADF system with head, cables and meters
for $40 and asked the people their if they had any thought about the
email situation and the connector business. I am told that they do not
have internet service at bills shop; they have one computer and use it
for inventory. And any email has to be taken care of at his house,
further more keep in mind that some people are not email people and that
it may take several emails to resolve issues with just what type
connectors people need. All of this can be resolved with a signal phone
call. I did point out that someone in a different time zone may not have
this as a good option, but you can’t force anyone to be an email junkie
like me. Hope to have more to report tomorrow provided we don’t get
rained out all day and have to apologies that I will not be able to post
pictures until I get back because the U of D people won’t let me FTP
across their network.
Ray Fantini KA3EKH