[Milsurplus] 90 days to Dayton

[Ray Fantini]

We are a little over ninety days until the Dayton, or is it now Xenia Hamvention. Just went ahead and paid for my two spaces 7839 and 7939 and that was a quick $140 for that, $22.00 for an admission ticket and will also be shelling out for a hotel up in Springfield that will be over $140 a night that any other time of the year rents for $70 and have to say that I am a little concerned looking at the list of reserved flee market spaces on

https://info.pcboard.ca/hamvention/

I see a little over one hundred of the just over six hundred spaces not taken. Think this means that roughly one out of every six flee market spaces are open and not rented. That not including any people who were there last year and may not show up this year, the Hamvention automatically renew your listing from last year in the same space and it's up to you to pay and attend. Don't know at what point they declare it an open space.

The venue, concessions and everything about the location is far better than the hole that was Harra Arena with its pot holed excuse of a parking lot, septic system eruptions and dark dilapidated buildings and they did do a better job controlling the mud last year in the infield but have to wonder about the future of the Hamvention.

One thing I have to say is that I do a lot of selling at Ham fest, many items that are too big and just don't want to be dealing with EBay and all the issues with shipping, fees and a lot of the flakes that buy stuff on EBay and as fest go I always make the most money at Dayton and tend to be able to sell things like truckloads of R-390 receivers or KWM-2A sets that just don't sell at the smaller fest but if things keep going in the same direction just can't see much of a future in selling there with what it cost to attend.

Don't know, maybe it's just me but the thing that gets me the most is that all the Hotels in Dayton / Springfield at least double if not more there rate for the Hamvention. When you book online you can see their current rates and when you put the dates in for the Hamvention they at least double. The quality of the service is the same but you get to pay twice as much. Think the hotel the Collins collectors stay in now is over $200 per night in Fairborn. I use to stay in Fairborn but now find Springfield just as good, ten years ago the Springfield hotels did not do the double rate thing but today it looks like they all do.
Use to stay at the Quality Inn just off I-70 and they are currently $65 a night and they only jump up to $95 but that place was somewhat of an experience.

All that aside looking forward to the 51.0 Cold War Net and the 3.885 WW2 Net at the Hamvention. Still the one place where you can see more working BC-611 sets in use than anywhere else in the world and one of the best opportunities to net with not only US equipment from as early as BC-1000 sets to some of the most modern radios but also work German, Russian and any number of other nations radios on 51.0
In the last couple years MRCA has been growing its field exercises at Gilbert and this last year we had a lot going on at Beltsville but still think the number of participating backpack and portable radios at Dayton is the largest event of its type.

Ray F/KA3EKH

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