The last of the Hamfest..............

As I alluded to, Saturday at the show was another big day.... But it was dampened a bit at first... Literally!  It began to rain about 9 AM and poured for about an hour........  Everyone was scrambling for tarps and covers to put over their tables of merchandise..

I use merchandise loosely as many of the items are vintage or antique electronic items....  Some haven't worked in many years and usually aren't restored...  Some of it is kept as museum quality pieces...  One of our guys does this, as he has a room added onto his home under an outdoor deck...

It has shelves of old radios of all vintages...  Some of them do work, but most are museum quality...  Mike had two great big old Heathkit radios in his truck to go home for this application...  One is called a Mohawk and its matching transmitter an Apache....  I asked him where these were going to go, but he didn't really know, as he was out of shelf room......  Its a disease....... collecting stuff..



The little piece on the top next to the Speaker is called the sideband adapter...   Radios this old, didn't do single sideband naturally, but had to have the adapter wired in to convert them...  Year that these were sold as a kit would have been 1959...

I also have some of these radios that kind of worked a few years back.  They are models from the mid 60s...   I keep them as kind of a museum station too.. They are model SB 102s and several related accessories...  Maybe some day I can take their picture for the blog....

As the rain was letting up, I made a mad dash for the inside buildings and spent most of the remaining morning going around all of the retail vendor's tables....   I didn't buy much... which I had promised myself that I wouldn't....  I just like looking at all the stuff........

I ended up back at our spot, talking to folks as they stopped by to look at our junk  I mean valuable items for sale...!

I had packed all my clothes and checked out of the Motel that morning, so when it became 4 PM, I wished everyone a good trip home and headed for the car....  I drove for about 5 hours, passing thru Indianapolis around 6 to 6:30....  I drove right thru the center of town on I 70 as it was Saturday night...  There was no traffic to speak of...  Nice!

I finally stopped for the night at a Ramada Inn in Vandalia, Illinois...  It was just becoming dark, but I had gained back the hour lost on Tuesday as I entered Illinois, and the central time zone...

I must have been really tired as I was asleep almost instantly as the lights and TV in the room were never turned off........  About midnight I awakened and took my clothes off and went to bed...

Of course this morning I was awake by 6 AM, as that was 7 eastern when we had been getting up during the week...  I was on the road by 8 after some Nice Biscuits and Gravy provided by the hotel...  I thought about Rick up in BC as I was enjoying this wonderful gooey pasty delight!!!!!  LOL  He hates the stuff...  But with enough salt and pepper..........

I was back here in KC by about 2 PM, enjoying an overcast and stormy afternoon...  We had a few tornadoes South and West of here during the night, but none were in any towns, so it was mostly farm buildings that were damaged...

The radar is still lit up with orange and red as I type this tonight...  Ah, spring in the midwest!!

Retired Rod