Union, Maine Hamfest Report

Fresh back from the Union, Maine Hamfest, and it was a good one.
I enjoyed last year, snagged a Johnson KW Matchbox antenna tuner (You can never have enough Johnson Matchboxes.), and this year was more of the same. I actually arrived late, the ARRL website said the event started at 9AM, looks like the doors opened close to 8. The Pen Bay Amateur Radio Club, who puts on the shindig, really do a nice job, and have a wonderful location inside the Union Community Center, so its hamfest rain or shine.

A good selection of gear was present, both new and old stuff, and for me, lots and lots of vintage parts.
I really don't need any more radios (How many times have you heard that line?), but I do like and need those hard to find vintage parts that you just can't find at Radio Shack anymore. Wonder how much longer we'll be able to find Radio Shacks, or are they going the way of the vacuum tube?

Back to the subject, a very interesting Old Timer (And I use that phrase respectfully) had a good amount of vintage parts, test gear, vacuum tubes and meters on his tables, a collection which had taken several decades to amass (Whenever I see a collection like that, the first thought which comes to my mind is my YL hauling the stuff out to the curb when become a Silent Key and go onto my reward.) I say tables as he must have had 5 or 6 large tables overflowing with parts, including some very interesting 1930s vintage air variable capacitors, beautifully constructed with black bakelite and brass rotor and stator tuning plates. I was tempted on those they would make a great display piece, or looks great in a homebrew regen, but the $25 price tag was a bit too much for something to sit on my shelf.

Picked up a very nice old buzzard Simpson signal generator with a very large dial, 1950s vintage, in good shape with the original manual for $1. It had the original price tag and sales card still attached, $87.50 back in 1950s dollars. Also found a very interesting Supreme vacuum tube tester from 1933, complete with the original wooden case and typewritten data sheets for tube testing. This a wonderful black bakelite job, with the old tube taper knobs, old style test switches, and very intriguing test meter, $4 total. I managed to stuff a small box full of various carbon comp resistors, caps, vacuum tubes, Mallory and Switchcraft switches/jacks and even old war surplus FT-243 xtals cut for the amateur bands. The OT even had a good assortment of 1920s vintage Radio News magazines, delightful reading on cold winter nights when the wind is howling. We had quite a chat about antennas, including a underground job described in a 1926 Radio News magizine. That's right, an underground antenna, rubber covered wire, terminated in a bottle sealed with canning wax. The best thing was that it worked and the author was acuatally able to work other stations with an antenna buried 1 foot underground! Clever our predecessors back in the 1930s.

Speaking of old magazines, another OT whom I had purchased a Collins 75A-1 receiver from last year at the Windsor hamfest recognized me and called me over. He had a complete, with the exception of a few months, collection of QST magazines from 1924 to 1960, with the indexes! I protested that I did not really need any more QSTs, but he managed to talk me out of $10 for the entire lot, and threw in another box. I like using the QST on CDROM for quick reference, but the computer scans are pretty poor and its much more enjoyable to read the actual magizine.

Sometimes you just never know, the smaller fests can yield just as much, or sometimes more than HossTraders.
Thinking about it, I brought back more from the Union fest than I did from this years pilgrimage to HossTraders.

So there you have, add Union to your hamfest calendar for next year and I'll see you there!

73 Bruce W1UJR