[Milsurplus] Dayton Final Thoughts

[Ray Fantini]

Ok, the trip is over. Got back around eleven last night after the ten hour drive and started unloading the truck. Wondered in to work this morning and being the kids are working on their finals have the opportunity to jot down a couple things.
I did an informal poll on Saturday and talked with at least a dozen or so people about the fest. People ranging from hard corps Military radio to just regular vendors that were there. I wanted to get a sample of their opinion to mix in with my own being that's always a hard thing to do. So often before you write or try to say anything you suffer from already having formed an opinion and try to make what you're writing conform to that thought. But I will try to give what I saw and heard some credence with regards to this year's event.

Venue:
Harr was located in Trotwood, a suburb of Dayton that's a depressed semi urban slum. It not in the city but it's nothing like the clean country environment at the Green County Fairgrounds. My hotel is in Fairborn and in the past this involved a half hour drive thru the wastelands that are now the northern bergs of Dayton, closed stores, delict houses and hotels. At least they did tear down all the old Delphi plants and put a casino in that locations but the trip from the hotel to Trotwood was always something like driving thru the outskirts of our older northern cities and at the end of the road was the Hara Arena. An example of what was once fine venue that had fallen on hard times for several years. The Green County Fairground are a fifteen minute drive from Fairborn to the fairgrounds over open farm land and clean Ohio country side to the fairgrounds located just outside Xenia. A world of difference with the only disadvantage being you no longer travel by any fast food establishments and I do miss the morning stops at Tim Hortons for donuts and coffee.
Much has been said about the mud. It did rain Thursday and Friday night and again on Saturday. The infield of the racetrack did turn into a mud pit. People, carts and cars got stuck.  There was much bitching and complaining about how all the personal carts sank and suffered from short battery life in the mud. What do you think is going to happen on a grassy surface when you get lots of rain?  I have had to deal with mud before and sometimes that's just a fact of life.
The flea market sales aria was smaller than the old site. Maybe as much as twenty percent. But anyone who had been in regular attendance for the last several years can tell you that there were plenty of spaces that never were sold at the old location along with lots of spaces people bought just to park in. I think it was an improvement forcing everyone closer together and eliminating all the empty spaces between vendors. But do think it's a bit confusing having one flea market section in the track infield and another on the bottom side of the tent section by the main buildings.
And it is true that they just had one general entrance for everyone to come in and out of that resulted in long lines and wasted time although there were no significant delays in the mornings when I arrived or the afternoon when we departed.

Ergonomics:
Apart from the mud and signal entrance have to say that there was a huge improvement in the choices and amount of food vendors. But that was at a cost, $2 for a bottle of water or $10 for a burger is a bit much. I did not partake of any of the food vendors myself so cannot comment on the quality although have been told they were good.
Bathrooms in the sections I was in consisted of all port a pots. They clean them out around noon each day and perhaps it would have been better to do this first thing in the morning. Did hear complaints about people going first thing and being upset that they were not clean at that time.  There were plastic trash cans and recycling cans at the ends of most of the rows in the flea market and they were emptied often On Saturday before departing the event had a big box of trash and hauled it over to the nearest trash receptacle and it disappeared. Just a note on trash. I saw people just dump on the ground at their spaces thing like a stack of Motorola Micors and remotes along with lots of other stuff, it's amazing the things people just dump and leave behind.

Economics:
I can only speculate on what I saw and know firsthand. I brought a bunch of Watkins Johnson and Collins stuff that I was selling for a friend. It was all priced to sell, not what many would consider its worth but with the idea of I want this stuff to go away. And with this in mind I sold just about all of it on Friday. This included things like KWM2A transceivers that needed to be restored for $450 each with parts KWM2A transceivers for $250 and Watkins Johnson working radios in the $500 range working and non-working Racal's for around $100 each. Did not sell as much Friday, had a flock of 30L1 amplifiers and ended up selling them all as a package deal because they were not generating any interest at $350 each. Selling at those prices things were moving. I saw items like a working R-388 for just $250 and a 51J-4 for $350 and consider that good deals for those buying. Think both sold, know the R-388 did. There were items like the GRC-19 set for $1,500 that more than likely did not sell but that just proves that at that location and time a T-195/R-392 just won't bring that amount. I saw a Harris RF-2368 receiver, the military version of the RF-590 for $850 and keeping in mind what they have been selling for I tried to buy it but they would not reduce the price to what I was able to afford so I did not get it. That's the thing, if what you have is not selling maybe it's just not worth what people are willing to pay at that time. Other times and places will have different results. Everybody always says about how they can get more on EBay- so let them go and sell it there. Think that my experience has been that everything at Dayton sells for about half to two thirds what it would sell for on EBay and there is no shipping.
As far as the quantity and quality of the sellers, think that just about the same as it's always been. Just speaking for myself have to say that I don't believe in this story on how at one time "Hams would not cheat people" or "everyone was friendlier" or all the other old saws we were feed growing up in the hobby. Been doing this for about forty years now and can't say people are any better or worse on the average, but that's just me. Your experience may differ. There were some complaints about Mendelson not being there this year, I did not notice until I saw some post about it. At one time Mendelson sold lots of useful parts and surplus electronics but I watched them change over the years from a hardware and parts dealer to a huge cluster of tents at Dayton that sold more and more junk like cookware and other unrelated items and did not miss them at all this year.

Conclusions:
Dayton or now Xenia? Is more than just a flea market it's an opportunity to get together with fellow collectors and the mill radio community in general. It's the opportunity to take part in the 3885 WW2 AM net, the Back Pack Net or my favorite the 51.0 Cold War Net and show off your radios in the field. Not just sit around in you basement or workshop and talk about operating but to get out in the field and operate it. What's the point of restoring and working with this stuff if you don't show it off or use it as originally intended? Over thirty Mill radio people took part in each of that days nets. We all had a good time doing it. Also in the process I picked up a frequency counter that I was given and have in the past given away items to other who were like minded. So at the end of the day it's not just a flea market to me. It's the chance to get together, exchange equipment, operate radios, tell stories and give and get advice and a thousand other things that make the event a success so that will be my prognoses of the event. It was a success and I will be glad to be going again next year.

Ray F/KA3EKH

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