[Test-Equipment] flea at mit ???

[Dave Emery]

On Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 09:41:19PM -0500, Gary Chatters wrote:
> The FLEA at MIT gets quite a bit of publicity here.  I have thought
> a bit about going, but it would be a long drive for a hamfest.
> 
> So, the question for the group here: Is it worth an extra long
> drive, or is it just another hamfest?  I am interested in 
> test equipment, of course, and anything else useful for building,
> experimenting, etc.

	I'd say more and more just another hamfest, but probably that
isn't particularly accurate either.  What it has become in recent years
is yet another used and NOS computer equipment, computer parts, and
various software, computer documentation and computer books fest.   I'd
say that at least 70-85% of all the "stuff" sold at MIT fleas both by
volume and by total dollars is either PC or Mac equipment (there has
been a fair amount of Apple stuff there lately and some Sun equipment as
well) or enormous quantities of computer system parts (ISA and PCI I/O
boards of all kinds, motherboards, monitors, video cards, power
supplies,  disks, CDROM writers, DVDROM drives, DAT drives, floppy
drives, tape drives, keyboards, cpu chips, memory, mice, joysticks,
speakers, laser printers, inkjet printers, cables, adapters, network
cards, modems, hubs, routers, terminal servers and so forth...). 

	Most all of the more or less whole computers and laptops are
older used systems (166/200/366 mhz Pentiums or PowerMac 7100s or G3s
for example) selling for very little, there are rather few really modern
current technology systems up for sale (and then not usually real
bargains either).   But there are always a good number of dealers and
individuals selling NOS computer system components and sometimes even
quite current new stuff, often in original boxes or OEM packaging,
surplus or excess from some commercial deal and often very attractively
priced if you happen to be looking for one of those, and especially if
you can get by with a less than absolutely state of the art version.  
And there is often quite a bit of ex-ISP, ex dot.bomb server class
equipment (disk farms, server class Suns or SMP Pentium machines), all
of course a little bit out of date and going cheap.

	And of course there still are people selling software (these
days mostly on CDROMs rather than floppies) and often documentation with
it, though the copyright police have definately put somewhat of a crimp
in that once flourishing hamfest cottage industry.   But one can still
find lots of presumably legitimate old editions of MS software (back a
version or three) and other popular PC software - often in the original
boxes with all documentation.  And lots of game software, especially
older or less popular games of a year or two (or more) back.  Most all
software sold now is more or less legitimate NOS or used copies, one
no longer sees obviously crudely copied or pirated stuff openly out
on tables for sale.

	And there are lots of software (and general engineering) 
related books and manuals for sale, including quite a bit of material
directed at and of interest to software developers and other techy types
rather than the general public - stuff ranging from textbooks to chip
documentation to software tools (compilers and development environments
et al).

	One thing one can say about at least a significant fringe
minority of the computer stuff at MIT is that some of it is very much
commercial, server, ISP, and business R+D oriented rather than being
just entirely vanilla home computer junk and one can certainly find
useful stuff mixed in such as 488 I/O cards and cables, other specialized
lab useful IO boards, commercial type peripherals, and all kinds of
exotic networking gear and even sometimes out and out laboratory
specific interfaces and equipment.


	As for the rest of the "stuff" sold at the MIT fleas, it divides
itself into 3 categories - traditional hamfest used test equipment,
electronic parts and components (particularly rf)  and other  exotic R+D
surplus electronics; ham gear including both a fair number of boatanchor
class rigs and modern ricebox used gear; and a random smattering of
consumer electronic devices like TVs, VCRs, DVD players, power tools,
stereos, satellite TV receivers, speakers and so forth.

	Years ago (5 to 10 and more) there were several NE (NH, NY, PA,
NJ, ME, Conn, Mass) commercial surplus test equipment dealers who would
regularly show up at the MIT fleas with rented Rider truckloads of more
or less standard HP, Tek, Fluke, Systron Donner, Genrad, Wiltron,
Anritsu and other similar relatively current well known models of test
equipment of the sort seen at  major regional hamfests and Dayton - the
same gear that was hitting the rest of the used and surplus market at
the time.  So one could always count on a good selection of Tek analog
scopes of the 465/475 and later era, lots of HP signal generators, DVMs,
counters, sweepers, logic analyzers, power supplies and so forth and
various other stuff.   Typically this was piled up on tables or the
parking lot, or on rack shelves (lots of rack shelves) and sold for the
usual kinds of market "as is" no warrantee what you see is what you get
prices in the hundreds of dollars to around a K or so  range.

	But in the last couple of years especially (and certainly the
last 5)  fewer and fewer of these dealers seem to make the show, and
what little they bring with them is more tired and picked over and much
less interesting than in the years previous.   I would say some fleas
last summer had less than a third of the test equipment of 5 years
before if even that much.   I assume that this drop off reflects the
impact of the Ebay marketplace, the steady decline of the hardware side
of the tech R&D sector in the Boston area and NE in general, and the
impact of changes in the DRMO rules regarding disposal of government
surplus test and electronic gear.  And of course a decline in interest
in electronic hardware projects as opposed to computer and software
activities  by the techy population in Boston (and elsewhere), resulting
in a diminished market.

	But much more interesting than the standard well known models of
aging but still more or less current (or at least in wide use) HP and
Tek test equipment offered for more or less standard used market "as is"
prices was the fascinating collection of oddball and unusual electronic
instrumentation and related random exotic laboratory gear that some of
the dealers brought along to dump at very low prices to the unique MIT
audience.   It was quite clear that several of these dealers made a
practice of buying lots of gear at auctions or government sales, selling
off the standard well known stuff at market prices, and dumping much of
the remaining one of a kind, strange, nobody-knows-what-it-is-for stuff
for very little to those from the Boston area and especially
Cambridge/MIT R+D community who might recognize the equipment and know
very well what it was used for and want to buy it cheap on a lark for
some project or simply old time's sake since they remembered working
with it a few years before in some local lab.

	And many dealers really wanted to get rid of this stuff and not
carry it home, so toward the end of the flea they were often essentially
giving it away to avoid having to cart it off - unlike the standard
models of well known test equipment that they knew they could sell later
on and held on to and did not dump at low prices at the end of the flea.

	So all kinds of interesting stuff showed up on this basis from
time to time - exotic high power laser heads, gyro testers, theodelites,
portable cable TV spectrum analyzers/signal testers, custom built
experimental L band radar rf front ends, sonar signal analysis and
plotting devices, super high resolution low phase noise synthesized X
band DSCS downconverters/upconverters, much specialized communications
test equipment such as protocol analyzers and BERT boxes, high vacuum
pumps, cryogenic gear such as dewars, obscure HP microwave counter/phase
lock boxes, gas chromatographs, specialized video production equipment
of all sorts, strange rf gear such as special ECM and other exotic
receivers and transceivers, PA amplifiers, GEOS satellite time antennas.
special military battery test systems and on and on.  I can hardly
scratch the surface of the varied list -what I list is a vague sample of
a few items I remember that caught my eye.

	Dribs and drabs of this sort of thing can sometimes still be
found at the recent MIT fleas, but alas much much less of it than a few
years ago, as there are fewer dealers showing up and thus much less of
this dumping.

	There also still is, as at all hamfests, the odd non-dealer
individual who happens on one or a few really neat exotic items - perhaps
from the company dumpster or when they are cleaning out the lab or
shutting down a division or a failed startup - and brings them to the
hamfest for sale. Sometimes these people have no idea of what the stuff
they have is, or is worth, sometimes they think it is worth a lot more
than it is, and sometimes they have a pretty good idea about it.  Often,
of course, the dealers and serious collectors grab anything really
interesting and salable from these people very early in the hamfest,
usually before it is open to the buying-only public (that is why many of
them bother to attend in fact).   And at MIT, it is almost certain that
someone will soon walk by who knows exactly what anything that shows up
is and is used for and might be worth and probably a lot of detailed
history about it to boot, so there are few real unknown bargains around
long.  But a regular collection of interesting and/or useful things does
wander in this way, however, and MIT is no different from other high tech
area fests in that respect and some really nice stuff does sometimes
become available through this route.

	Another category of sometimes mildly interesting bargains that
occasionally show up at MIT (including once in a while recently) is
piles of broken or modified or damaged older and/or obscure test
equipment that dealers are simply dumping to get rid of it.   Often this
is really cheap indeed if one can fix it or needs it for parts (and it
is sometimes a good source of parts indeed for older stuff)

	A class of items that used to sometimes show up at the MIT flea
until the last 3 or 4 years and has been very much missing lately there
is fairly recent military/government surplus "green" type radios and
other similar gear and also much of any recent military surplus (Harris,
WJ, Collins, Microtel etc) SIGINT or military comms gear, especially the
oddball collector stuff like real 70s and 80s US crypto gear  that used
to occasionally appear.  The last year or two has seen a sharp drop in
recent surplus government/military gear at all hamfests I have been to,
but at MIT it has dropped to close to zero.   There are still some older
boatanchor catagory military radios that show up (BC-348s, SP-600s,
R-390As, R-1051Bs etc) being sold by private sellers (mostly individual
hams), but no longer any serious dealers/collectors with tables full of
sometimes relatively recent (80's or even early 90s) one of a kind
exotic government/military gear that used to make one wonder how in the
heck they ever got one of those to sell.  About the only exception to
this has been the occasional Racal 6790 or Harris HF transceiver for
sale by individuals.

	MIT also has a slowly dwindling collection of dealers  selling
electronic parts and particularly rf parts and connectors and small rf
modules of one sort or another.  There still are usually a half dozen or
so dealers with tables full of little buckets with rf jumpers and SMA
and BNC cables, and coax adapters, and connectors, and
terminators/loads, and attenuators, and rf switches and relays, and
filters, and couplers, and mixers, and power splitters,  and
circulators/isolators, and the odd specialized antenna, and even
occasional active rf modules such as LNAs or power amplifiers or
downconverters or microwave signal sources ("bricks").   The number of
these dealers small and large who show up drops bit by bit every year as
computer stuff takes over ever more completely, but there are some of
them still attending pretty regularly.  And a couple of those dealers
have various other miscellaneous non rf parts mixed in as well.

	Ham gear is available of course - less and less over time, and
with less and less apparent interest by purchasers in it compared to
computer junk (which often attracts pretty decent crowds).  One sees the
usual collection of ricebox radios for sale (hf transceivers, VHF
mobiles, HTs, the occasional scanner), both fairly recent ones with high
and hopeful price tags on them, and older gear at more reasonable
prices.  And there are the occasional beam or rotor or other antenna,
and various accessories.  And the usual couple of dealers selling used
Motorola commercial two way gear, though somewhat fewer of them than
some other fests.   And while I certainly don't concentrate on it, it
would be my impression that there are a growing but still small number
of boatanchor classic ham rigs sold at MIT or at least for sale there.

	And beyond that there seems to be a steady but moderate supply
of other classic/boatanchor gear being offered by private individuals at
MIT.  Some of this is probably of considerable interest to collectors of
specific items (eg classic ham gear), some of it appears to be very old
and tired stuff that has sat in someone's basement until they finally
decided to clean it out and trot it to the MIT flea (things like obscure
1950s and 1960s test equipment and other 25-40 year old electronics)
that it is hard to believe anyone wants at any price (and which rarely
seems to sell either).  And of course for those so inclined, boxes of
tubes in little deteriorating cardboard packages.

	Not relevant to this group, but still a significant fraction of
the non computer stuff at MIT is various more or less modern (eg not
boatanchor) consumer electronic gear of various ages and in various
conditions - some working, some broken and "fixable".   Most but not all
of it is mixed into lots of stuff that private individuals are selling
(eg they threw in all the junk in the celler, including the old VCR and
the broken stereo receiver).  But there are a few apparent  service
shops or dealers that sometimes show up with big piles of broken DVD
players and VCRs and receivers that they try to unload, and occasionally
also someone who shows up with a pile of NOS consumer gear (often
something like a whole bunch of speakers or phones or something
similar).  And there are even a couple of people who drag in big piles
of antique and rather broken cameras and other photo gear.

	And finally there are always a few people selling science type
toys - strong magnets and magnetic levitation devices, various optical
gadgets, motors, mechanisms, small lasers etc.   And also a similar
number of individuals selling various random specialized tools like
security bits and tap and die sets and crimping tools for cables.
	

	But in summary - much computer stuff, less and less interesting
test equipment, but still a few exotic high tech items here and there.
And still some rf parts and cables/connectors/modules sold by both
dealers and private individuals.  Some ham gear - not much interest in it
compared to computer stuff.  Some boatanchors.  Very little modern
military/green/spook/sigint stuff.  And did I say lots and lots of
computer stuff.... and lots of interest in it and customers for it which
dominate the fest.

	Worth driving a long distance for ?  Depends I guess.  Certainly
much less really high interest unique non-computer electronic gear than
Dayton by probably an order of magnitude or more.  And in recent years
easily less by two orders of magnitude (eg 1%) than the total amount of
actual test equipment for sale at the Dayton flea (which of course is
still huge). And certainly less green/spook/sigint/milcom gear by far
than at comparable size fests in the DC/Va/Md area.

-- 
	Dave Emery N1PRE,  die@die.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. 
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2  5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18