Hamfest 2013

And before somebody asks the inevitable, “you went to what?” Ham radios, not meat. Thank you very much.           oldmilitaryradio

Ham radio, aka amateur radio, according to eHam.net is “a richly rewarding high-tech hobby that has many different appeals to different people” including: ” the ability to talk to local friends over the radio waves using a hand-held transceiver (HT), communicating digitally with packet radio to exchange personal messages or vital information in an emergency, talking to other hams anywhere in the world, or engaging in contests with other Radio Amateurs.”  I’ve lost count as to how many years my dad and I have been going to this particular Hamfest.  The Atlanta Radio Club and Kennehoochee Amateur Radio Club host it over at Jim Miller Park in Marietta.  If you’ve never been to Jim Miller Park before, it’s huge; it has space for rodeos and car shows and the North Georgia State Fair.  They’ve even recently installed something that looks suspiciously like a chairlift.  People pull up their cars/trucks/vans and set up tables under the blazing Georgia sun and try to sell stuff.

Yes stuff.  While a lot of it is made up of radios and radio parts, you occasionally come across some really cool odd things like the “how to speak klingon” cassette tape I found a few years ago.  This time we found a pony.

Angela_horse It moves.  It was still when we walked up to the tent, and we were a little shocked when it turned its head.  The guy that owned told us that the more you play with it the more it’ll interact with you.                                     dadandpony

My dad with the pony.  If you scroll between the two pictures you can kind of tell that the head has moved.

My mom was in Pennsylvania for all of this so, of course, we tried our best to convince her that we bought it.  I sent her the first picture with the message “We’ve bought a pony!”  We called her up and told her that we were going to put it on the porch to keep off the squirrels.  We complained about how hard it was to fit the pony in the van.  She didn’t buy it.  So in the true spirit of the joke we sent her the second picture with the message “Dad’s really excited about the new pony!” and briefly contemplated taking a photo of my Dad pulling his wallet out to pay for it. (Just for the record, we once had her convinced for about a week that my  Dad had joined a mariachi band.)  But, back to the topic at hand.  The guy selling the pony had some other cool junk.

He had a few different jukeboxes in a big trailer; one that played cds.  The one Dad is standing next to plays records.  And he had toy robots…because who doesn’t need to go home with a plastic robotic arm, right?

oldradios

While old toys are interesting, I like coming across things like the old radios and turntable above because much of what’s for sale at these events is old, but it’s rare to find “treasures” in the old stuff.

My dad was telling me this story about the Dayton Hamfest (Hamvention?), probably the biggest of these events, where he saw these three big white vans pull up to their allotted selling spot .  The vans all stopped, and the guys inside opened all the doors and kicked and shoved boxes of junk out of the van.  They sold things from where the boxes landed.  As he’s telling me this story we walk up to a guy selling stuff and somebody in his big white van opens the door and starts kicking boxes of junk out.  These boxes are full of old phone cords, wires, dust, bits and pieces and things that probably went to old electronics that this family no longer owned.  I suppose breaking things isn’t a worry when the stuff inside isn’t worth the cardboard box its packed in.  My Dad likes to say “I’ve got a special spot for that.”  His special spot being a nearby trashcan.

I wish the picture came out a little clearer, but, inside the glass case, are telegraphs.  New ones. (I believe this is the website for that booth.) As far as the random radio bits and pieces go, my Dad generally knows what they all do, and I tend to smile and nod at the explanations hoping they’ll make sense/stick.  I was a little surprised to find a booth dedicated to camouflage, and really had to fight the urge to crawl underneath and scream “Dad, can you see me?”  I was good though.  Promise.                                                                                    

truckantennaeNormally these are the first thing you see when going to a Hamfest: people with ten foot tall antenna strapped to their cars(which might be an exaggeration, but probably isn’t).  Sometimes…well, most of the time…they look a little ridiculous.  And no, we didn’t strap one to our minivan before we headed out in the morning.  As we were leaving we noticed a big trailer, and inside the trailer was a man operating a radio.  I’m pretty certain he was the man we talked to on the way there(Dad brought his little portable radio with him), as the Hamfest had their own channel so that people could call in and ask for directions if they were lost, etc.  I think this antenna was connected to the radio the man was operating in the trailer.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far and survived the mess last night without trees falling on anything important or losing power.  I actually meant to post this last night, and then the power went out, knocking out my computer.

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