Another Dayton Hamvention has come and gone. The event was canceled for two years because of Covid, but it did happen this year.
Nicks pictures, both at Fair Radio and the Hamvention site give a better description of anything I can say, so I will borrow his links and post them just in case you have not seen them:
Fair Radio
https://photos.app.goo.gl/evEz4y7bGwsjCw7Z8
Hamfest
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JcQw86War4py9XkH6
With K4NYW photo documentation I feel that it’s pointless for me to do my postings from the event, but let me try to review a couple high points.
With the cost of gas and with some last-minute things that came up at work I was not able to go to Midwest Electronics or Fair Radio this year, hope to hit them on Thursday of next year.
Arrived at the Hamvention around eight Friday morning. It had been pouring down rain all night but the rain stopped before arrival and was clear the rest of the day.
Friday is always the day for shopping and selling, I bought a couple things like a completely unmodified BC-342 receiver that included the cap that screws onto the cannon plug for $40 and had someone who brought a BC-224D, the twelve-volt version of the BC-348 and paid $20 for it, The seller wanted to see it go to a good home.
My biggest purchase was going in with two others and buying three Harris RF-280/URC-94 transceivers for a box full of money. One was a rack mount variant and although I already have a RF-280 it is in the regular case and now have a rack mounted one that will look better in the shack.
Think that attendance and selling both peak on Friday, Saturday not bad but not as big as Friday, and not many stick around for Sunday.
Saturday was another day without rain, at least in the morning. Arrived a little after eight in the morning. John at the MMRCG has invested a lot of time and effort into trying to get a lot of the military radio collectors together in the same location, and that work is starting to pay off with the results of around a dozen of us being located in the seventy-seven hundred zone by the “Taj” the large tent where the MMRCG is located.
Every year at noon MMRCG runs a World War Two 3885 AM Net where the idea is to try to activate period correct radios as part of the event. Its open to all radios but highlights WW2 stuff. I was privileged to be able to supply a radio and serv as net control for this event. The radio I used was a Navy MAK transceiver that was powered by a twelve-volt car battery, I had my Sunair standing by just in case but the seventy plus years old MAK did its job.
We had twenty-two stations check in with around six BC-611 handhelds, at least one or two GRC-9 sets and several newer US radios and non US equipment with a handful of newer Yaesu and Kenwood sets.
We wanted to try to do a telephone patch at the beginning of the net to try to bring Joe W4VAG into the net, he has had some medical issues this year and is currently in a rehab facility.
Joe is one of the people that are responsible for this nets existence and it would have been great to get him into the net from outside the Hamvention but unfortunately technical issues occurred that prevented this from happening.
There was also a small issue with the MAK going a little off frequency as the net progressed because it was hot outside and think the radio being intended for installation on a small craft like a motor launch has no ventilation and with a half hour or so of continues yakking by net control got quite hot.
If I were smarter maybe I would have just pulled the radio outside its case and the problem would have been solved but you know what they say about hindsight.
The 51.0 Cold War net started at fourteen hundred hours, KA8TUR operated that net with a Harris 310 and had twenty-seven stations check in with a lot of PRC-68, PRC-25/77 sets and other us and non-us sets including things like German SEM, Thales and Tadiran sets and have to give special credit to the three stations who ran PRR/PRT-9 sets.
About two thirty the skies were threatening, everyone started packing up to try to get away before the rain. Think we pulled out around three or three thirty that afternoon and I am already looking forward to next year.
Attached images include the MAK 3885 station and the get together after the net.
My list of stations in the 3885 AM WW2 Net:
KK1K KW1I W2HX KB2VTL N3AJA N3KCB N3OC W3OWE KE3UY
K4IC KG8HZ KB8ELG KA8TUR AC8WP W8AU WD8AXA W9RAN N9FSE WA9FDO WD9GHK
If I missed or mutilated your call sorry, but it was hot out there!
Ray Fantini KA3EKH