Mt. Bacon Spam Feast (Mt. Beacon NY)

[WBear2GCR]

A fine day, starting with sporadic showers in the wee hours, culminating in more sporadic showers until about 11AM when a sunny day broke out. Just in time for the end of the Spam Feast.

Was dismayed to learn that the Mont Bacon repeater ANT had been "kicked off" the towers high atop Mont Bacon, some years before. Formerly this repeater was a 4 state coverage machine... I've been off 2 meaters for some long time, so it was all news to me.

Odd thing, hardly any tailgating turnout. A handful inside the small building. A mere shadow of years past, when it was held at the High School and took up two large cafeteria rooms, some hallways plus whomever was in the parking lot.

Traveled down with Steve W2TRH, John KC2FXE, both stalwarts of the Catskill "AM clan".

So, it looked like a loss going in the gate - maybe 10 tailgaters in the drizzle.

But, oddly enough I passed one gentleman with two receivers in dubious condition. One an SP-600, with a sanded clean front panel and shined up brass escutcheons. How much? The price came back. Good price, I looked a bit closer. Surprise it is a JX-6, the same as the one I just acquired! What luck! Paid the man.

But what about that other reciever? A really really beat looking R-390 it was. Grungy with brown stuff and some sort of bizarre damage to the right vertical edge of the front panel. The front panel was a total loss, given that damage. FXE said " that's fire damage". But later on it looked like it corroded into non-existance.
He had a repro black wrinkle finish 390A front panel, silk screen not engraved too. But, given the condition, too much.

I came back later and made another offer, which he took. We had a nice chat about receivers, receiver appeal and the auto-tune R-391 (think that is right).

Carted the two off to the van.

Later on, Chris W2JBL came strolling by...

...my friend Pablo went for his tests, and managed a Tech. He'll bone up for the General. He picked up a Viking + VFO + spare tubes + a TR/control box and an old Azden 2M rig... he builds up DIY audio amps, so he can handle the Viking.

Other odds and ends were acquired.

Given that the potential seemed so low, it's pretty incredible that these two receivers were still sitting there given that we arrived a good hour or so after the start of the fester!

                         _-_-

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Big hamfest at the Hall of Science in Queens, NY also on Sunday probably took most of the metro NY crowd. Also, BARA hamfest was Saturday in north Jersey. We probably had more sellers then non-sellers there. Disappointing, but I got a nice tan.

[wa2pjp]

HEY.........How did I miss you guys?? It was a pretty small fest, but I got a great deal on an Icom dual band HT and I left around 10:00 because of the rain.

[WBear2GCR]

Have since decided that the icky brown stuff was likely chipmunk or squirrel pee... seems to come off nicely with Turtle Wax Bug & Tar remover... and I picked up a replacement front panel, which I guess I will repaint... now all I need to do is to overcome the fear of those gears!!

Stupid receiver fever has struck again!  

[WBear2GCR]

Dunno - I did not see you Joe.
Expect that I ought to have.

We were there by 10:00 for sure, arrived about 9:00.

I was standing with the guy with the Viking rig, the fellow who does the nice cartoon QSL cards
and other illustrations for quite a while and also outside shooting the breeze with the fellow who had
the two receivers.

Here's a pic of Parlov, who is a new tech as of the fester, and I got him to pick up the Viking.
His first rig!

                  _-_-