Anyone addicted to Hamfests / Radio Rallies?

[oldvan]

Anybody else here get a kick out of Hamfests?  (Amateur Radio flea markets, the Brits call them Radio Rallies)

I'm headed for one in a few hours in Rochester, NY.  If weather holds off it should be fun.

I'm taking an OldVan load of "junk" I haven't had use for in the past few years, but will assuredly return home with more stuff than I left with.   

I find Hamfests to be excellent places to buy things in bulk, things like terminal strips, surface mount resistors, odd-sized machine-tooled sockets that can be cut down to mount smaller SIP and DIP components (32-pin for example), etc.  I also find a bunch of oddball stuff I just HAVE to tinker with. 

[bbarney]

I've been to a couple with my friend who is the ham (not me) and I thought I died and went to heaven 
I couldn't believe the amount of hard to find parts that were new and dirt cheap too,I spent about $50 dollars and hit digi-keys website when I got home and figured I just saved about $200 in parts plus I got a complete set of carbide bits (50 bits $10) and these were really small hamfests to.
They have a really big one but I seem to always be busy when it runs and miss it plus it's about 200 miles away but if I ever get to that one I'll be taking lot's of money just in case 
Happy hunting

[oldvan]

Someone may have a box of assorted avatars there, if the price is right I'll get them for you.  ;-)

[LabVIEWguru]

I've been going to hamfests since the early 70's. Of course growing up in Ohio, the best in the world was Dayton. Findlay was 2nd best. Now that I live "down south" Shelby, NC is just incredible. They aren't as good as they used to be because of Ebay, but still a great way to spend a Saturday. It's a good hamfest if you bring back more junk than you took.

(picking up a cabinet with lots of knobs and switches) "What is this?" "I don't know, but I'll give it to you for a dollar."

[pissant]

The hamfests and meetings around where I live aren't the greatest unfortunately. The guys who attend those things are stuck building with thru-hole components and haven't moved on to surface mount mostly. When I've tried to explain that surface mount can actually be easier to work with than thru-hole, I've just gotten blank looks. ;-) A nice set of guys, but disappointing in terms of technology.

[pickit2]

here is one I found

and then I also found this on that usb pen you lent me.

[bbarney]

I like the new hairdoo you gave me but what's with the home movie of your wife doing on here   I'am just glad it wasn't that movie of the breast feeding thing you told me about