Dayton Hamvention May 2022
Another Dayton Hamvention has come and gone. The event
was canceled for two years because of Covid, but it did happen this year.
Fair Radio
https://photos.app.goo.gl/evEz4y7bGwsjCw7Z8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JcQw86War4py9XkH6
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.
Final thoughts
First Show after two years due to Covid. Did not get a picture of the Cold War group because everyone was scrambeling due to threat of rain. Wonder what next year will bring?
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