So it has come and went again, the Huntsville Hamfest was alive and well this year with a strong showing from major companies as well as a sizeable boneyard! Who doesn’t like a good boneyard?!?
We started our morning by grabbing some coffee in Scottsboro on our way from Trenton and heading over to Huntsville. Since we had paid online we did not have to buy our tickets at the gate and we were able to immediately register, get a pin and go on into the Hamfest. I have to admit, I was a little bit taken aback when we got into the show iteself by seeing all of the vendors that were there. There were so many vendors in new equipment, product manufacturers and the boneyard was unbelievable. It was like I had went back in time 20 years to a hamfest. I have always been more interested in the boneyard than I have in new equipment so we focused most of our time wondering the boneyard looking at things from days gone by and occasionally buying stuff.
This was the second trip to the truck of the day… lol
We bought so much stuff that we had to go get a little red wagon cart out of the truck to haul it all back with. I finally bought an amplifier and a power supply to drive it, as well as a few antenna tuners and some other little odds and ends, OH YEAH! and a 20 meter hamstick for my POTA ops to reduce the kit size if possible on some outings. I don’t even remember what Roger bought other than the STACK of those green hard shell cases from GigaParts! Lol, I think he ended up with 4 of them before he was done! HaHa. He has so many portable radios that he wants to kit out and these are almost perfect right out of the chute. a little work and some closed cell foam and mine will house my Argonaut and all the associated stuff to use it for an activation.
We saw so much cool stuff that it is hard to remember it all. Things like vacuum tubes galore, along with all the panel meters ever made at one table, and if you look close enough, you can even find vintage crystals in a cigar box here and there.
It was a kit builder’s paradise! We found so many parts to build amps and tuners with and there was a table with nothing but little project kits (I failed to get a photo of that though…) .
We grabbed some lightening arrestors as you can never have too many of those… then started looking for cool old Ten Tec stuff. I was actually looking for two very specific things made by Ten Tec back in the day. One was a Hercules II amplifier and the other was the Collins mechanical filters for my Omni 7 radio. If you happen to read this and know where I can at least get the 500hz Collins filter I would really appreciate it.
Here are some of the Ten Tec rigs we found, minus the Pegasus and the Scout that I forgot to grab a photos of…
The mighty Orion 2 contesting rig even made an appearance!
Something else we noticed early on was the incredible number of Ameritron AL-811 amplifiers that was there! It seemed like every other table had one on it. That is an exaggeration of course, but it did seem like every time we looked up we saw another one. We saw so many that it actually became a little running joke between me and Roger.
About 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized we needed sustenance and grabbed some nutritious options from the snack bar onsite. As an aside, I have realized that I am now officially vegetarian too. At some point I figured out that I am allergic to beef (probably the result of a tick bite), so I decided to join my daughter, who is vegetarian due to medical issues arising from PANDAS, in being vegetarian as well. Something you need to understand here, I hate vegetables. Yeah, I said it. I cant stand vegetable soup or okra or butter beans, just cant stand most vegetables, but I am figuring it out…ever so slowly.
I don’t know what the big deal is with the whole division in the dietary community too, I just don’t order meat and mind my own business…simple. But you see these vegetarians throwing fits over restaurants not offering things compatible with their diets and meat-a-tarians making fun of the herbivores. I just dont get it, but who knows (obviously not me). I just know that if I don’t eat beef, I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with hives head to toe and itching all over for an hour.
Anyway, I got the fries and pretzel and they were quite delicious. Yes, the pretzel has butter on it and it was awesome! (I am not vegan…lol)
Once fueled up, it was back into the fray. Here are a few photos of some of the highlights I saw…
These keys were amazing! If you want a wonderful key built by a ham, this would be one that I would suggest, they were simply subline.
I even found the youtubers. Lol.
At the end of the day, we finally called it a done deal and headed home with our new treasures. All in all it was a great show and if you are within reasonable driving distance, I would say to give it a shot next year, it was well worth our trip this year to say the least. Thanks for following along and I hope you enjoyed the tour!
72
David - WK4DS