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The Manassas Hamfest
Elisa heroically accompanied me to the Manassas Hamfest on Sunday. We had fun. I thought they had a good turnout of vendors and tailgaters, and it seemed like the sellers of real ham stuff were winning the battle against the encroaching computer people. I saw many interesting old boatanchor radios, including two R-390A receivers, one HT-37, an HW-101 and several other Heathkits.
As for NEW technology, the fellows from the NOVA LABS maker space had a very interesting table, and their web site has a very kind acknowledgement that hams were "the original hackers, who organized build groups and hack labs similar to modern day makerspaces—back before people called themselves “Makers” and long before it was “cool.” They had a 3-D printer that was doing its thing in a very impressive manner. They also had some quadro- and octo-copters built by a group called DC Area Drone User Group. Very cool. Want one.
Inspired by Nick Kennedy, I have included in this post a picture of my purchases from the hamfest. As you can see, I controlled myself. But I couldn't resist the humungous flashlight! I got a bunch of .1 caps (should have bought more!). Got a Bud-box (maybe for an Arduino DDS project?) The little circuit board with the IF cans is interesting. I bought it (1 dollar!) for the 365 pf variable cap, but I later realized that it is probably a complete All-American Five receiver on a single board. I'm not crazy about tubes on PC boards, but this one may have some possibilities. The roll of tape is supposedly coax sealer. I also got a little 35 mm slide viewer, and a 12 volt wall wart.
I wore the "Real Radios Glow in the Dark" T-shirt that Elisa got me (on the recommendation of Rogier). I got more positive comments on that shirt than on any other piece of clothing I've ever owned!
And we saw our first Cicadas of this 17 year cycle.
Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20
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