[Milsurplus] Dayton last thoughts

[Mike Morrow]

Ray wrote:

> spent more money buying the sniper variant of a Mosin Nagant rifle

One has to be really careful about 91/30 "sniper" rifles nowadays, since
the import houses have been rolling their own for a good number of
years.  Most of the authentic rifles were imported and sold 20 years
ago, and bring a substantial price ($600 at the very minimum), even
an original Soviet arsenal re-build (which is what most were).

   http://www.russian-mosin-nagant.com/fakesniper.html

Up until recently, military surplus 7.62x54R ammo was readily available
at the lowest cost of any military center-fire round.  It's not nearly
so now, since citizens started buy-up in the face of political gangsters
exploiting tragedy.

> it is one of the biggest event for mill radio people for the real use
> of field equipment on AM and FM

I would question the applicability of "real use" here, but in fact Dayton
is the *only* place I've ever used my AN/PRC-68 for a QSO, other than
tests with it that I and another ham made with an AN/PRC-6 in a local
national forest.  It's interesting how many folks show up on the 51 MHz
net on Saturday, and the variance of equipment that is used.

I never went to Dayton when I was a resident of Ohio...the parking horror
stories made me stay away.  Later I attended from 1996 to 2002.  Dayton
attendance was about at its historical peak of about 32,000 then.  I went
mostly because it was an opportunity to get together with several ham
friends from other parts of the country.  I went back again in 2011 and
found it rather diminished.  I believe 2010 attendance was only 18,000,
for a drop of 44 percent.  If one goes to Dayton, a full day must be
allocated to the best thing in the area (even when Hamvention is in town)
...the US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB.  That's worth seeing
if one is ever "in the area", even if a 300-mile diversion is required.

I have *not* read any reports of visits to Fair Radio yet.  I loved doing
that.  I never understood why they don't open on Hamvention Saturday just
for such visits.

Mike / KK5F