The AM Forum

A few pics from Hosstraders. The files are BIG.......so I hope u have a fast connection....
Click on each link on at a time.......

http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H1.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H2.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H3.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H4.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H5.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H6.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H7.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H8.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H9.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H10.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H11.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H12.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H13.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H14.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H15.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H16.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H17.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H18.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H19.JPG
http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H20.JPG

Hello Bill, Since I'm a poor SOB with a dial up, It would take me fowever to look at all those pictures. Which one is the one I'm on?  I got to the back of Rogers head in about five minutes of download, I then gave up.

Some day I'll be rich and famous or BPL will come through here and soulve my download problem.

tnx & good job on your post. Rogers head looked great!! ;D

 

Bill - Many thanks for posting the pics for all of us to enjoy.
Regards,
           Joe N3IBX

Yup.....the files are big. I wanted to get them on the web quickly so I didnt take the time to reduce them but I will knock them down to a more usable size and post them also. Its nice to see the big version as well. Stay tuned.

Terry, H5 is a nice shot of you. Great to finally meet you, Dale and a couple of the others who I have been speaking with for a while.

Attached is a photo of KB1IAW marine mobile, the narrower hull to the left,  at low tide (24' average tidal range) tied up to a dock at Whitehead I, NB home of Dave, VE9AT.

Nice pics, but a thousand words is worth a picture....

That semi-annual trek into the Northern Kingdom came to me in a vision some time in the last millennium, all those years ago.  Like a flashback flashing forward, the damn thing got stuck in an old wallet, bonding with the leather.  Getting up early, going to breakfast somewhere on the road, then pissing and moaning when we got there and remembering you had to pay extra to get in early.  Every year it's the same, twenty bucks admission to buy a Cathy's Sausage Sandwich...

Well, Cathy's wasn't there this year.  And I skipped breakfast on the road Friday morning, just so I could eat lunch early.  But that's the way it goes at this event.  You leave the house thinking it'll be easy to find a bag of orange da-glo capacitors for the tree, and when you get to the fairgrounds and make your first perambulation, there isn't a single one to be found.  So you resign yourself to a Christmas without that particular color, and open up the folding chair somewhere in the vicinity of Wayne's World so that when the inevitable raindrops fall out of nowhere, you'll already be under the porch roof.

I did something different this year.  I brought up a couple things to sell, figuring they'd cover the cost of the gasoline and the admission.  I wasn't there ten minutes, and had them sold.  And that's what the magic of Hoss Trader's is all about.  You go there thinking "I'll do this and that" and that's what happens, albeit with a twist of lemon.  This year a  sizeable crop of meteorological hobbyists decided it would rain both days, and so they didn't go.  Good thing, because all the people who did go decided it wouldn't rain at all on Friday, and that's exactly what happened.

Around ten years ago, I decided to make movies of the fester, and that's exactly what happened back then, too.  But how many movies of middle aged white guys standing around talking about stuff can you make that continue to be new and exciting?  It's been four years since I made the last one, and yet I still get asked, "where's your camera?"  But it's still new and exciting.
  
That spot near Wayne's World in front of the Swine Barn is the center of the known universe.  I was sitting there with someone early in the day on Friday, and they seemed to think they were situated in a spot where nobody would be coming by.  I told him we were sitting smack-dab in the very center of the known universe.  Be patient, I told him, before long you'll see that all the people we know will be drawn to this spot.  It's because they threw out too many of Maxwell's more arcane equations, very early on.  It all has to do with magnetic moment and the rate of spin.  All that invisible energy tends to converge in various spots around the globe in places like Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and right there in front of the Swine Barn.  The same near field power addiciton that makes an AM-er drink beer is manifested in that spot.  It isn't, as some people have theorized, that the piss markers have built up over the years, and that all we have to do is sniff our way around the fairgrounds to find it.  It isn't that at all.

So it went the way everybody who attended had imagined it.  Nice day Friday, rain afterwards.  The sun was shining, the beer was flowing, and right around sunset they dragged the five foot diameter barbecue (built in the exact shape of a satellite dish, pointing straight up into the sky) into that exact spot in front of the Swine Barn and commenced the arcane ritual that is the heart and soul of the Hoss Traders.  But we're sworn to secrecy about what happened from that point on.  Maybe next time the rest of you homebody AM-ers who didn't go will finally go next spring and find out what this mystical experience is really about.

Jeff
KA1OGM

Here ya go Terry......smaller version

http://www.kc2ifr.com/photogallery/H5S.jpg

Bill,
Tnx for the pics, very high quality, almost like being there!
Even the giant "AM Mudpuddle" at the bottom of the hill was represented.
Only thing I missed were the wonderful apple crisps, hope to catch up on those next fall.

Missed it this year, first time since I have lived in Maine.
The biz kept me in place on Friday, and I spent the majoirty of Saturday outside doing battle with the pond.
Kept rasing the gates on the spillway to keep it from overflowing, incrediable amount of rainfall.
So with the fall HT in the bag, I am most looking forward to the spring event.
In the meantime I'll have content myself with keeping in touch with the miscreants on air.

73 Bruce W1UJR

Bruce,
   The Apple Crisp stand was closed, no Apple Crisps this time!
Sorry that you didn't make it, I was there from 10:00AM-6:00 PM had a great time and even made it all the way home before the rain started!

73 Warren K2ORS/WD2XGJ

No Apple Crips, say its not so.  :o
Oh well, not on the Nutri/System list of approved foods any, will have to wait until next fall.
Still, I bet the leaves were beautiful, felt sorry for all the leaf peepers I saw headed into my neck of the woods on Friday, pretty wet weekend for looking at the fall colors.

Sounds like Friday was the way to go anyway Warren, wonder when the next fester is this year?
I seem to recall something in NH during October, perhaps someone can speak to that.
I don't need gear as much as I need parts, especically cloth covered wire, which is near impossible to find the good stuff any more.

How I spent my weekend

Heh, heh.... reminds me of

(http://amwindow.org/misc/jpg/swl1.jpg)

Sounds like Friday was the way to go anyway Warren, wonder when the next fester is this year?
I seem to recall something in NH during October, perhaps someone can speak to that.

Bruce,
    Friday was warm and dry Hi Hi FB WX OM, shirt sleeve condx.
Steve Finberg W1GSL maintains an updated list of New England Fleas:
http://web.mit.edu/w1gsl/Public/ne-fleas

73 Warren K2ORS/WD2XGJ

We found a nice ice cream place on RT9 after missing the Hostrader's treat.
We headed out just as the rain started. Friday was nice and warm without the sun cooking us. Family was surprised to see me roll in Friday night.

I like number H17.jpg.  Love fried eggs and hash.

Ah yes.....H17. I believe the fella cooking the eggs and hash is Brown and if u look at the left burner, u will see a bagel being toasted by Dale. The bagel is going to be consumed by the Tron. Im not sure who the eggs were for!!!! In any case........the breakfast feast was enjoyed by all who came by Dales setup. Thanks again to Dale and Brown for helping to make a rainy morning more tolerable.

Bill,

Thanks for the pix! I particuarly enjoyed the beautiful day and the films shown on the pull up projector screen under the tarp that evening! The content of these films will of course remain secret; known only to those in attendance, For those who wimped out fearing the 'falling sky' I can only say, get there  in the spring!

Cliff

The "Dinner and a Movie" at Dale's spot went over really well and it hopefully will be an ongong Hossstraders tradition.  I've been doing up Friday night chow at Dale's spot for many years.  The movie addition this time was my son Dave's idea. He had just downloaded the WW2 documentary "Voice of Victory" from the Internet for me.  It's basically a Hallicrafters informercial on how the HT-4 went to war as the BC-610 in the SCR-299 radio system.  Dave brought along a video projector and a DVD player in case we wanted to try showing it Friday night.  What really made it a show was Dale's lucky find of that old fashioned movie screen on site early Friday, complete in a military transit case for the outrageous sum of $2. Lacking a screen, we were going to use the side of one of the white buildings.  With it, we were able to set up under the weather and the show went on!  An added short feature, a GM propaganda film about the amazing performance of the 1960 Corvair was hilarious!

Great comments on the films from the peanut gallery, and cheers whenever the picture of the BC-610 popped up on the screen!

Taking recommendations of titles of future radio related movie showings for the spring...

Thanks for posting these, Bill - by the looks of the water, I'm glad I got there Friday morning!

Was good finally meeting you and talking about the good ol' days in music.  ;)