[Milsurplus] Dayton, Saturday

[Ray Fantini]

The weather was the same today, only hotter. Temperature in the mid eighties by noon. No clouds and completely clear sky, most unlikely for Dayton. Was told that it had rained every weekend for the last ten weeks and this was the first clear weekend. It’s hard to believe but the hot weather and lack of cloud cover may have contributed to driving most of the people away by the afternoon and I saw many people who looked like steamed crabs due to the non ending sun.

Many of the items from yesterday were gone today. If you’re going to come to Dayton be there on Friday or don’t bother. Did see that the one ART-13 for $250 was still there along with the two SRR-13 receivers and the HRO RAS-5 The rough looking R-390A receivers for $800 each were all gone but the good looking R-390 for $500 was still there along with the weird looking light gray face R-390A for $1.100 and the Black face R-390 I spent the day looking for auto tuners to pair with the URC-94 that I picked up and wanted to buy a ratty looking 351 series auto/ manual tuner but the controller was rusted and dirty with blown meters and the cover was separated from the tuner for who knows how long and the test equipment reseller who had it wanted $500, I would have paid $100 to $200 but no way $500 and on the subject I also saw a Collins 180L series tuner for $140 but it was the one without the T/R switch so had no interest in that and a very clean tuner from the BC-610 that had a small amount of rust on the chrome crank rods but otherwise was clean that did not sell and it was only $250

The 3885 net went off with no issues at noon. Net control station this year was Joes ARC-5 receiver, transmitter and MD-7 along with remote control and antenna switch. Everything was powered by two car batteries. There were a little over twenty stations using BC-611, DAV, Pogo Stick, GRC-9 that were hand crank powered, a chore in the heat and hot sun and several newer radios. The Cold War net was at 14:30 local on 51.0 and in spite of issues with Net Controls station and a fast radio change had forty four stations participate. Many PRC-68, 68A,68B sets along with newer sets, also a couple SEM sets and at least  three or four stations running PRR/PRT-9 sets, only heard one PRC-25 usually there are more and a couple sincars radios representing the newer stuff. I was running my Russian R-107 along with also wearing my Russian shirt and cap; somebody has to represent the other side.