Dayton Hamvention May 2009

The Trip to Fair Radio on Thursday before Dayton:

Today at Fair Radio was crowded; I got their late at thirteen hundred local. Had to stop over at the Hamvention and pick up paperwork and then

did side trip to Midwest Electronic Surplus. When I got their parking lot was full, including a chartered bus full of Japanese gentlemen who

were buying all manor of things. Instead of talking about the inventory or the stacks of stuff I wanted to write up some basic information about

the company. Fair Radio started back in 1947 and now is in the second generation of ownership by the Sellati family, the founders sons ran the

business together until now when we are down to the surviving brother Phil; there are a total of five full time employs and one dog, Raven

working their.

They have a total mailing list of just fewer than ten thousand customers with ten percent being outside the US and

approximately ninety five percent of their business being mail order, with today being the biggest local sale day. I am told that despite the

current economy that their business has to this point been unaffected, and that their slowest periods of business were following the beginning

of the Iraq war and during 911. Kim who been with the company for some years now tells me that one of the biggest changes in the past twenty

years has been the fact that the government just isn’t selling equipment like they did in he past and that most of the items are being destroyed

and as a new source for equipment Phil, who is also the chef buyer is now also pursuing estate sales and non military electronic surplus. Many

pictures were taken and I have posted a couple here. Hopefully this may provide a small insight into their operation.

 Myself I have to say

that I have been looking forward to the arrival of their catalog for over thirty years and hop to see them in business for many more, and to

that end I contributed to their operation by purchasing a couple items.

Couple quick observations about Dayton this year, first the weather today was perfect. Bright sunshine and temperature in the high seventies

all day. Second, only about two thirds of the tailgating lot was full. Lot of empty spaces. Will see if more sellers show up tomorrow. Prices

appear to be about ten to twenty percent higher this year then last. Lots of R-390 receivers in the $250 to $500 range, ARC -5 sets are all

costing around $30 to $40 for ratty sets, did not see any clean unmodified sets. Only saw a couple R-388 and 51J series receivers priced

around the same amount as R-390 receivers. Myself I bought an ARC-38 with the 180L tuner, control head and very scares frequency setting book

for $200.00, lot for those but have a soft spot for that radio. Strange thing this year people don’t want to reduce prices, don’t know why but

that’s what’s happening. Oddly though people who bought my stuff did not haggle so who knows what’s going on? What I thought was the best deal

today is one of the surplus dealers is selling a huge trailer of equipment for $1 per pound. Picked up a couple PSM-37 meters with all

accessories for $10 (ten pounds) and an APN-7 Loran for Mr. Smith for $30 (thirty pounds) and saw lots of other test and avionics on the

trailer. There is a new ARN-7 with the tape wrap with shock mount that I almost bought, but bought too much junk today.

One of the best things about Dayton is the ability to sit and talk with people you only see once or twice a year and spent a lot of time doing

that, speaking of this I stopped by William Perry’s booth and bought a test set for the newer Collins ADF system with head, cables and meters

for $40 and asked the people their if they had any thought about the email situation and the connector business. I am told that they do not

have internet service at bills shop; they have one computer and use it for inventory. And any email has to be taken care of at his house,

further more keep in mind that some people are not email people and that it may take several emails to resolve issues with just what type

connectors people need. All of this can be resolved with a signal phone call. I did point out that someone in a different time zone may not have

this as a good option, but you can’t force anyone to be an email junkie like me. Hope to have more to report tomorrow provided we don’t get

rained out all day.

The "big" book sale, I got their too late and missed out!

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May 09