I arrived around 7AM Saturday morning (the meet started at 8)
to set up my table, and the parking space on the right side of
the building was already full of sellers. Had to park about
half-way down the back of the building. By the time the last
sellers arrived, they were parking on the left side of the
building. The seller turn out was among the biggest I've seen
at this venue.
I walked away from a box of late model HTs on the club table
that included some Icom IC-2AT, 3AT, and 4AT models. Those are
the ones with the thumbwheel frequency selection that I like.
They would have gone home with me at the end of the day of they
were still there, but someone wanted them more than I. An
acquaintance of mine grabbed a nice Yaesu FT-470 out of that
box. That's an early 1990s vintage dual/band HT with a good
reputation. They went for around $400 bucks back in the day,
and I don't think he paid much more than a few bucks for it.
There was a dude who was giving away late model desktop
computers ranging in condition from "parts unit" to "working
with a Linux server installed." One of the local
retro-computing enthusiasts, a hackerspace buddy of mine,
filled the back of his minivan with old Macs that were either
free of close to it. I almost bought a 386 Grid laptop from
him, but someone else beat me to it. Dude had a $40 price tag
on it. Another seller had a Kaypro CP/M machine. There were a
bunch of surplus LMR radios, and ham rigs, and antique consumer
electronics. Then there were the non-electronics folks selling
records and communications-related ephemera.
My first find for the day was actually in that last category, a
couple old road maps that they used to give out free at gas
stations until the mid/late 1970s. I've always been a geography
nerd and map geek. The Interstate highway build out was mostly
completed in the early 1970s and paper maps made after that
time frame are still accurate enough at their scale for use.
They also don't require batteries, are EMP proof, and can't be
jammed or spoofed. You can still buy paper maps. I've shown you
a road atlas for sale at Wal-Mart. They are a bit expensive to
buy new. Road maps are $7+, and a road atlas will set you back
$15-$20. You can get them at used for a couple bucks t a swap
meet like this, but you have to poke around boxes of ephemera.
One item I look for are cheap mid-tier or better desktop police
scanners. By cheap I mean less than the cost of an RTL-SDR
purchased online. My criteria for "mid-tier or better" are
features such as extended VHF low-band coverage of 25 or 29 MHz
on the low end to 54 MHz. on the high end, UHF milair band
(225-400 MHz.) coverage, 800 MHz. band coverage, triple
conversion receiver architecture, and a tuning dial (see Uniden
BC-9000, Radio Shack PRO-2035/42, et al). Even a low-tier
police scanner will have a better RF front end than an RTL-SDR,
and despite all the other software available, no one so far as
I know has developed software for an RTL-SDR that lets it do a
point search of several memory channels (discrete frequencies)
from an overall frequency coverage range of 25-1300 MHz. the
way my one of my newest acquisitions can.
The second acquisition for the day was a Radio Shack PRO-2005
scanner for $10. This was a $400+ scanner back in the day, and
I remember after that ECPA nonsense in early 1990s paying $350
for a used one at the Gaithersburg, MD hamfest in 1995 and
congratulating myself on finding a bargain. Normally, any Radio
Shack PRO-2004, 2005, 2006, 2035, or 2042 for sale for $20 or
less is a no-brainer, but this one had an extra BNC connector
on the back labelled "455 KHz. IF." hobbyists installed an IF
tap on scanners so they can use a shortwave receiver tuned to
the IF frequency for receiving sideband on the CB band, and on
the VHF/UHF ham bands (aka "weak signal"). Upon further
inspection the BNC connector was wired by way of a capacitor
and resistor in series to test point TP2 on the main board,
making the modification a discriminator tap, and not an IF tap.
That saved me the hassle of doing it myself. Whoever did the
modification may have had no idea what it was called, but they
did a nice job on it. I would have used an RCA (preferred) or
1/8" phone jack instead of a BNC since the output was audio and
not RF. The previous user was also nice enough to clip the
diode for full 800 MHz. frequency coverage so I can use the
scanner to check for old AMPS phones being modified and used as
surveillance devices. The PRO-200x series are responsible for
the resurgence of RF hacking back in the late 1980s/early 1990s
with the late Bill Cheek and others writing about scanner mods
and such. I'll get more into the PRO-200x series in a future
post.
The second acquisition was another desktop scanner, a $5 Radio
Shack PRO-2018 circa 2002 which was made by GRE. This is a
basic 200 channel analog non-trunking unit, but it has 25-54
MHz. VHF-low band coverage. If it doesn't get a discriminator
tap for monitoring local VHF and UHF DMR comms, it'll wind up
monitoring 10m FM for band openings, local VHF aeronautical
traffic, or something else like that
The final item had manage to elude my attention until the end
of the day. I suspect the seller had it in the trunk of his car
until the 11th hour because I would like to believe that I
would quickly notice a World War 2 US Military BC-312 shortwave
receiver on a sellers table. It was clean inside and not
missing anything obvious. It was also the end of the day, and
the seller didn't want to haul all 40 some-odd pounds of
boatanchor back into his car, so after some brief negotiation I
hauled it to my car for $20. In my defense the price was right,
and at least it wasn't an R-390 or SP-600. Everyone needs an
old hollow-state shortwave receiver that is EMP resistant, and
can be fixed with basic electronics tools and some knowledge
you can find online. You will wind up paying more than $20 for
a Tecsun, and you won't find a tech manual for it that shows
you how to fix and maintain it.
It was definitely a buyer's swap. if you were selling, your
results depended, as usual, on how many people showed up and if
they were interested in what you were selling. I didn't do
great with sales, but I still came out ahead even with all the
stuff I bought. There weren't many buyers this time around for
whatever reason. My wife posited that many people didn't show
because of Father's Day being the day after. The next one at
this location is in September. We'll see what happens then.
