[Amps] Fleamarkets

[Jim Thomson]

From: Dave White <mausoptik at btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] why did Heath die?

What did surprise me was that when I bought a couple of large vacuum variable capacitors on the fleamarket at Dayton and was carrying them around and back to the car, I lost count of the number of guys with extra class callsign badges who asked me what they were.  Is there a message in there somewhere?

Dave G0OIL

##  That is a sad state of affairs, to say the least. 

##  I attended a hamfest locally, here a few years ago with a buddy.   One old geezer had a table set up with parts galore... like box's full of groth turns counters, military  knobs  I haven't seen in years, [ identical to the furled knob on the goth]... loads of glazed ceramic stand off,  air variables etc, etc. He had no taker's...so I cleaned up there.   If that had been back in 1972, he would have sold out in 2 hrs flat. 

##  The kicker was,  I had my Eimac  T shirt on  [7" diam Eimac logo.. like u see on the sides of old yellow Eimac box's, that had glass  3-500z's  4-1000's etc]     There was an easy 200  hams there, and not one comment  from anyone.   A  few fellows wanted to know what a turns counter was.  A buddy of mine snagged  a NIB  4CX-1500B, new socket, and new fil xfmr..dirt cheap.   Most of the hams  had never seen a tube before !   The only other thing I was asked was... 'do u monitor 34/94'.. and did I have  a 440 mhz  xcvr ?   I politely told the fellow that I tossed both my new 2m hand held's into my junk box yrs ago.. along with the mating 100 w   [new, still in the box] 2M amp.   95% of these folks were VHF ops.  Some had the audacity to ask  my buddy.. " why mess with HF, why not use the...internet" ! 

##  back in the early to mid 90's.... 2m packet  was all the rage.   Once dsl /cable modems came into vogue, the 2m packet boys left ham radio en masse.   1100 hams in my town.. and just a handful on HF.  [5-8 tops]

later.... Jim  VE7RF