Pages

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Ada Hamfest Afternath

Well, Saturday was the Ada Hamfest and Tiffany and I were "wheels up" at 0645 (a little later than planned) to head down the turnpike to Stroud then it was 2 lane on in.

Pretty small Hamfest. Rad-com was there from Lubbock and was the only major vendor I saw. But it's always nice to see them there. They brought along some of the new low-end handheld rigs that have been in QST of late, and of course a couple Yaesu FT-847 Satellite Rigs for those looking for a full-on rig. I grabbed a couple cables, some official ARRL logbooks (one for the nets, one for Field Day) and a small rubber duck for one of my rigs.

Picked up a sack of small parts and connectors from a guy outta the Houston area. No minimum order, no sales tax, no hassles. Took credit cards. That's great. Turned around and saw Kevin, KD5RHF. He's back from out west (western OK) now, and is in living in OKC.

Something caught my eye. It was an Icom IC-2AT. This might be the most famous (and just about first) synthesized 2m HT. My dad had one in the early the 80s. With the understanding that I get it promptly in the hams of a new ham (someone from W5YJ came to mind) I took it home (and two battery packs, a drop-in charger and a roll-up J pole) for $20. Thumbwheel switches set the frequency. Dip switches on the back handle the split and power level. No tone board. But it should work for .715 on campus. I think I might donate another rig to that cause and keep this one for packet work. 1W would hit Tiger Hill fine. I thought I got screwed Sunday, but now I see the radio is showing signs of life. The batteries are severly flat. Will have to rebuild the packs. No biggie for a piece of history.

I picked up a pair of Sennheiser headphones for the iPod. Turns out the guy made a few bucks on me, but I didn't pay tax or shipping per se, so lesson learned. Beware what things really cost before Hamfest. Example, go to Green Country Hamfest Friday night, make shopping list, hit the web overnight (Amazon, HRO, eBay, etc) then go back Saturday and deal.

Here is a case in point. This guy had a Grundig Satellite 800 SWL rig (I had my eye on this for a while) for sale. Rig was 6 mo. old, and allegedly he paid Universal Radio $550. That would make his offer of $399 attractive, right? I skipped the deal and when I got home I see that Amazon has new rigs for $400. And it's important to get the newest rigs because of better quality control and some mods. I might get one with the tax return ;)

All for now.

73
Scott

No comments: