Bargins To Be Had By ALL!!!

Every year near the end of August, the local amateur radio community has their annual "Duke City Hamfest." It's kind of like a big swap-meet on steroids! It begins at 5pm on a Friday evening (indoors), lasting until 9pm that night and then picks up again around 7am the next (Saturday) morning (indoors & outdoors). We just completed this year's Hamfest, and oh what fun we had!

The Friday evening portion is strictly an indoor venue with lots of tables set up through out a couple of the rooms within the UNM Continuing Education building. Each table has the wares of radio folks trying to sell old and new stuff.
The Saturday portion is both an indoor and outdoor deal. The outdoor part is a bunch of radio-folk tail-gating their wares -- mostly used, out from their tail gates. It's probably about 2 or 3 rows in the parking lot. Then the indoor part is the same as the night before. It's also a LOT of camaraderie! While all that is going on, there are forums on various radio-related topics, in the auditorium. The Saturday activities usually last until about 2 or 3pm. Then everyone packs up and the indoor portion gets transformed into a banquet room for our banquet that evening at 6pm. This year our banquet speaker was none other than the most interesting W9WSW, Scott Westerman. In addition to just being an all-around, very cool guy, he was also a terrific speaker. We enjoyed his talk very much.

Now. . . You might think that because this is an amateur radio gig, that there is just a bunch of perplexing electronics gear there. Oh contrare!

Although there IS a bunch of perplexing (to some) electronics gear, there are also folks there selling all manner of things. Think -- small garage sale items, plus a bunch of radio gear. One gal there is always selling interesting trinkets and doodads. That's always next to SW Antennas' table. My mom was selling a bunch of Star Trek collectible stuff along with other similar items she had picked up over time. Another couple of people were selling old gear from some of our dearly missed "Silent Keys" (for you non-hams out there, that means, dearly departed). My step-dad was selling all manner of interesting-looking electronics gear. . . big capacitors, little motors, lots of wire, bunches of pieces-parts for the do-it-your-selfer radio project person! Another few fellas had all sorts of radio tubes and transistors and. . . well you name it, they probably had it. Many of them have websites where you could later visit and order more! Our local antique radio club had a table set up there too.

There was a vendor there with all manner of led (as in Light Emitting Diodes) blinking and flashing light items. He even had plastic ice cubes with flashing lights inside! I love that booth -- it's just fun. Oh, he had regular led flashlights too. He also had ultraviolet led flashlights. . . that illuminate phosphorescent stuff, like scorpions and minerals. Way cool! A scorpion glows phosphorescent green in under one of those lights. Last year I got an led flashlight from him that doesn't require batteries -- you crank it up and it lights up for several minutes. Then you just crank it up again. That same year, I also got one of his ultraviolet led flashlights. (Come on! It's purple! I HAD to have one!) And wouldn't you know it! I didn't think to use it on either one of the little scorpions I found in my house! Actually, they moved way too fast for me to grab the light. . . no time! Had to stomp on 'em and be done with it! Eewww!

So by now, you get the point. . . there are lots of big and little bargains to be made at our Hamfest! It's a great place to pick up a used radio for not too much money. So -- I was on the hunt!

You see -- Recently, my mobile rig has been on the fritz. More specifically, the mic on my mobile rig has been misbehaving terribly! It has been cutting in & out most of the time. Very frustrating!!! And some of my buddies would tease me by pickin' on me, on the air, when they knew I couldn't come back at them. What brats!

Anyway, I believe the radio itself is fine. It's a Yaseu FT2500M, 2 meter band radio. It is a tough little rig. I bought it used (a couple of years ago) from one of my ham radio buddies who no longer lives in the area. But the mic. . . I think it had a hard life before I got it. If you think about it, the radios are usually mounted and stay put in a fairly protected place. But the mics. . . they usually end up sitting in a cup holder place or some other similar cubbie in the vehicle. Sometimes they get bounced around a bit. And so, I think, was the case with this mic. It is the model M-27 mic that came with the radio. A new mic of that model has been hard to come by. And expensive if I can find one. I tried contacting Yaseu to find out if another model mic would work on that radio (I'm guessing probably yes) and if so. . . WHICH One?? They never got back to me. How dumb was that on their part? Here I am, blogging about it. Anyway, I also tried getting another used mic, but that didn't work out either. The one I bought would trip the repeater, but no audio came through. We think it might have been a bad mic element. So I sent it back to the guy I bought it from and he is refunding the money to me. He thought it was working. It happens sometimes. Oh well. And so it went, I couldn't transmit from my car with any reliability.

While at the Hamfest on Saturday, I was looking throughout the wares out at the tailgate. I was hoping to find that model mic, even though I knew it was a real long shot. When these guys would find out what I was specifically looking for, their response was, "Oh! You're HER! I hear you on the net in the mornings -- cutting in & out sometimes and people talking about your mic issue. Yeah, I've heard of you. Good luck with that. Hope to hear you back on the air soon!" At that, I couldn't help but laugh. What a thing to be known for!

One of my ham radio buddies took pity upon my situation and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. What a sweetie! He had a nice little Icom IC-2100 he wasn't using anymore. It used to be in his motor home, but when he sold the motor home, he had an extra radio. He wanted to let me use it for a couple of months, see if I like it and then if I liked it, he would sell it to me for a good price. He explained that he really wanted to do this for me because we (at my computer consulting office) had been really good to him and I had always been so nice to him. (He is easy to be really nice to -- he's just such a nice ol' guy.) So, I took him up on the offer. He is giving me a very good deal on it. I've already bought the radio, as I knew I'd like it. He brought the radio the next day. I now have it in my car and it's working GREAT! I joked with one of the net-control operators on the air, Monday morning that now, I can talk AND transmit in full sentences!

I also found a very nice deal on a used laptop computer. . . a Toshiba Tecra. It's a step up from my last laptop. It will get me by for a while. I'm having fun playin' around with that too. I am having a bit of trouble getting it to recognize my wireless connection at home. I'm sure I've merely overlooked some stupid little middle thing. But I'll get it trouble shot out, soon! haha

All in all, it was a fun weekend. And I have new toys to get to know!!

Be Well,
~Paulena

~~And as we say in Amateur Radio,
73!
KE5DDZ clear & monitoring.