[Milsurplus] Rickreall hamfest Feb. 16 2019

[Hubert Miller]

I guess I tend to prolix and I hope at least some topic I hit on below holds interest to some of the audiences I have sent this to.

It was good seeing at  Rickreall some NWVRS folks and other people I know.
There were some vacant tables. Someone told me that was from tables not selling out this year but this morning I think that is wrong,
as I know one guy who said he could not get a table, was too late. BTW the same fellow planned to attend but driving from Grant's Pass
he was stuck in snow on road and could neither advance nor return to Grant's Pass; he spent the night in his car. What fun !
I stayed the day in the valley and brought back a bunch of interesting paper things to decide keep or put on Ebay. Things like QSL
collections from the 1930s, old radio company catalogs, and some early movie memorabilia. I found a 'Spokane Radio Company'
catalog 1938 and I tell you, it puts to shame any Allied or Lafayette catalog until the 1950s, it is that large. Maybe WW2 did in
Spokane's dreams of becoming a power player in the industry and maybe, I'm thinking, Spokane was a less than ideal location for
a radio electronics distributor. I was curious whether the catalog would have any Spokane Radio produced radio equipment and
there was none. I wonder if they only got into manufacturing in WW2 when the distributor business declined.

I drove back over the coastal range after dark and there were only a very few minutes of wet snow swirling and no hotshot pickup
drivers wanting to go faster and tailgating, so it wasn't that enervating a drive. I'd had only 3 hours of sleep the night before tho,
so I was pretty tired when I got home. I found the next morning I'd parked in the wrong parking slot, two numbers off, and I had not
even noticed. Maybe the occupant of that parking space thinks I came home a little drunk.

I bought a Tek 2225 scope for $80. Pretty good shape, I think 50 MHz scope, enough for me and my projects right now.
My free stuff was thinned out quite a bit - making me happy. More free stuff coming !

I bought a Navy  RBM - HF receiver  with nicely homebuilt by John Bauman, AC supply - speaker. I could not resist at $50. He told me he had restored
the back, where someone had added switches or connectors or something. So instead of giving away the two RBM I decided I would first
use parts from them to "upgrade" further this one I bought. What's that they say, "It seemed a good idea at the time" ?

I noticed at the "Country Store" tables a couple BC-348. One looked stock and one had at least one added toggle switch. Both were tagged
$175. At the end of the show I saw that the better one was gone. I wondered if someone had really, I mean actually paid that. I saw no
sign anywhere "Or Make Offer".  Brad and I have found selling BC-348s is a hard sell at hamfests and after selling a couple really nice ones
for $100 I decided it was a wasted effort to try to convince the smaller hamfest market this represents a value; instead I'll put such items on Ebay.
The same tables had several lower-end Hallicrafters like S-40 and some more home-entertainment models ( like HR-## ? ) with onboard speaker.
These were all priced $120 - 175. I think no one's gonna pay that unless the radio looks like it just came from the factory. Of course all these were
still there at the end of the show.

Dan H. and I both keyed in on a box we immediately recognized as a Forest Service SPF. We cooled our heels there waiting for the table owner
to return so we could hear some price. After about 15 minutes the guy returned and informed us, "Oh, that's for display only".  He said he had
patched the side where someone had cut a hole to be able to swap transmit crystals and then had removed the ugly hammified paint job  and, he
said, paid good money for paint to match the specific original shade of grey. Looked pretty good. It was SPF model AB.
We were both also looking at a unique receiver, a Multi-Elmac PMR-7. I think the guy said he bought it off Ebay thinking it was a PMR-8, the hamband
mobile receiver, but when it arrived it was this thing instead. It was same package and knobs but - general coverage. The lower band was
100 kHz to 1600 kHz in one sweep. Yes, you read that right. That means it uses a high IF so the osc can cover the range required. This receiver went up
to something like 32 MHz. I am a sucker for gen cov receivers with lighted sliderule dials and this one was in perfect condition and ex-rare besides, and
all this for $75. But I really did not like the 0.1 - 1.6 in one band and I realized I would be very unhappy with NO bandspread knob and the general
coverage bands like 7 - 15 MHz for example, spread across a little dial range of about 4 inches, like some crappy "All Bands" cheap transistor radio
from the 1970s. No sale for me. But - it did sell, I see.

Robin Bartel  of Turner, OR was there as usual with his military display. He had two 1930s Army radios, the SCR-178 and the BC-228 transmitter of the
SCR-203 set. I told him he had one of the rarest things on earth right there: the central, power distribution unit from the SCR-203, that goes between
the transmitter and receiver. I had a BC-227 receiver once and sold it for $35; now I could kick myself for that shortsighted dumb move. After doing
that I saw at least two BC-228 transmitters go by, that I could have acquired. I still have the canvas carrier for mule-back transport of this radio set.
Robin also had a rather unique 2 - leather bags set for the SCR-194/195. One bag was for the radio, one for the battery, and these rested on opposite
sides of the mule, with a strap between them holding up the bags. I think he said these bags were nomenclatured  BG-32, is that right? This is not in the
manual.
Oh, yeah, I recall I also saw a BD-86 dynamotor in excellent condition. What is that for ?

Also had interesting talks with a couple fellows whose mission was "electronics rescue". They had saved substantial test equipment and so on from
being scrapped out at the recycler. These were estate lots whose new owners had transported the treasures of their relatives right to the recycle place.
The recycle was only interested in metal value, so disassembling to recover metal was work that they were only too pleased to get out of.
-Hue
















-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/milsurplus/attachments/20190218/0b961a15/attachment.html>