[NJARC] Any reports from AWA Rochester?

[John Dilks, K2TQN]

From: "kd4hsh" <kd4hsh at carolina.rr.com>

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:58:47 -0000
Subject: [CC-AWA] Re: Any reports from AWA Rochester?


Folks,

Just taking a break before the banquet on Friday night
. I thought I'd make a
few comments on the AWA Conference
.

For me, the meet was a resounding success within minutes of arriving Tuesday
evening. Geoff Bourne told me that he had found a radio I have been looking for
some five years and it was in his van
.. Turned out, he was more than right!
I have every intention of exhibiting it next year
.

Tuesday evening you could preview the Babcock estate items and there certainly
seemed to be 1920's items of interest even to advanced collectors
 Wednesday
from 9AM to 4PM Rich Estes auctioned without a break
. By the time it was
over, about $94k was realized.

It was obvious that the prices realized are down quite a bit from just a few
years ago. I was able to pick up a couple of items so came away happy.

Wednesday evening there was a pizza party with 4 piece band in the hotel
. At
any one time there were 100 or so folks in the room
.. They had wanted to have
it in the HUGE! Flea market tent but the Henrietta town noise ordinance is
reported to have squelched their plans
. Still folks seemed to be having a good
time.

The tent erected in the back of the flea market was indeed huge and guaranteed
that there would not be a rain-out. As it turned out, the weather was pretty
close to fantastic


There were good items to be found in the flea market but it was clear that the
participation of sellers is low. I would estimate that the good news is that
the participation is on an upward trend for the second year in a row
..

There was plenty of time to enjoy lectures during Thursday & Friday
.

The contest participation was good with a number of never-before-seen items


As is usual, the Friday flea market fell flat pretty soon and the hard-core
buy/sell/traders were packing up after lunch. So more time of socialization and
attending the lectures.

Still looking forward to the banquet and the 
General Auction tomorrow morning
.
It will be interesting to see how many folks show up here for the Rochester
hamfest on the grounds tomorrow
. If nothing else, it will be an interesting
experience.

By mid afternoon I'll be on my way to an overnight stay in Harrisburg and then
the drive back to Monroe, NC on Sunday
.

Will I be back?
. You bet!

Update - Saturday evening....
I'm in Harrisburg and looking to an early bed 
time.. Was up Friday to Midnight but out on the 
lot a little after 6AM. I just had to know how 
the Rochester hamfest was going to work out....

Errrr... What hamfest????

There were no hamfest people there AT ALL as far as I could tell.

More than strange.... It will be interesting to 
find out what happened. I heard someone remark 
that they were wondering why it had not been 
listed as a ARRL sanctioned event in the last couple of issues of QST.

The general auction Saturday morning was smaller 
than last year but there were certainly a number 
of interesting items available at generally lower 
than expected prices. It took Rich Esties and his 
crew right at 4 hours to move it through...

A little strange on the timing.... The sale 
started at 9AM and it was pretty clear by 11 AM 
that the selling could be wrapped up by 1 PM but 
they stopped at Noon for lunch.... A lot of folks 
like me decided to bail rather than hang around 
to 2PM or so.... Note that the Babcock auction did not take a lunch break...

There were a few interesting items yet to sell 
like a not-so-spiffy Mercury Super 10 (but a rare 
version) and a very fine looking A-K Model 50. I 
figured that both would be out of my budget range...

Maybe other folks will now have some time to comment....

I'll still hope to be able to return next year for my 38th time in 39 years...

Robert