Hay Rick...Everyone seems to be at Dayton or wherever. Really not much
traffic...
Bob W1PE
I just got back from Dayton. This was the first one I had been able to
attend since 2003. Attendance was way down, compared to what I remember
about 10 years ago. You could actually walk through the corridors in the
flea market without having to elbow your way through the crowd. Not the
usual amount of Daytonmobiles to bump into your ankles or run over your
feet, but there were many empty flea market spaces. Even inside, while it
was threatening rain, it was easy to navigate through the display areas. I
spent a grand total of about 30 minutes inside, except for the AM Forum on
Friday and the FCC Forum on Saturday. The rest of the time I spent outside,
with an occasional break at the Pub. Despite the predicted chance of rain
all 3 days, and thickening clouds at midday on Saturday, the weather
cooperated and it was sunny most of the time with comfortable temperature; I
didn't see any rain the entire weekend. I didn't go back Sunday morning,
but the sky was blue when we left Dayton.
Despite the low turnout, this was one of the best flea markets and
gatherings I had seen in years. I saw many AM transmitters like Rangers and
Valiants. Several rack mounted AM transmitters in various degrees of
completeness. A lot of parts and vintage/antique stuff. Probably at least
as much of that kind of stuff as SSB transceivers and leenyars. Very
little computer scrap.
I didn't come back with a tremendous lot, but if this had been 20 years ago,
the car would have been loaded and dragging the ground. I am much more
selective about what I pick up these days, since I already have one or more
of many of the more desirable items I ran across, but limited space for more
stuff.
I ran into a lot of people this time whom I have talked to over the air, but
didn't remember ever meeting in person.
At the FCC forum, the subject of Winlink came up in the Q-A discussion at
the end, and what I found interesting was that one of the speakers made a
comment about how the FCC regulates emission types, not protocol, and went
on to say that AM, FM, SSB, CW, etc were all legal modes, and then continued
the discussion regarding digital stuff. Note that he mentioned AM first on
his list. Something else that I found encouraging was his comment that
"there isn't much going" on right now in the rulemaking department. It
looks like amateur radio in general, and AM in particular, are pretty much
flying under the radar at the FCC for the moment.
I was a little disappointed at the turnout at the Saturday evening AM
get-together at the Marion's Pizza. Many of those I had run into during the
day and who said they planned to come, didn't show up. We did manage to
fill a couple of tables, but they were separated. Apparently another group
of people already had the side room nailed down.
Don
k4kyv
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