Dayton Hamvention 2009

Hamvention opening day, Mother Nature, gave us great weather with lots of sunshine. Pictured here is the main entrance to the flea-market. It's 8AM and everyone is waiting patiently for the gates to open wide, to be first in line to acquire that "once in a lifetime" priceless air-loom flea-market item. The item no one else wanted, which you are willingly paid twice what it's worth, just to store it in your basement for the next 10 years, before selling it again in the flea-market for half what you originally paid. Sound familiar ????

As I wondered the flea-market, eyes popping out at all the flea-market junque and being glad it wasn't mine, when I ran into this group of Drake enthusiasts. Pictured here (L-R) is Sindre, LA6OP, visiting us from Norway, Jeff, WA8SAJ, and Jim, W8DRZ, talking about there latest flea-market bargain.

Just up the road a few feet I found Jeff, WA8SAJ, at his flea-market booth. Jeff has lots of good Drake bargains to sell. By the end of the second day Jeff was sold out, looks like several folks got good deals there.

Two isles over I found this guy wondering among the flea-market bargains. Looks like Evan, K9SQG, is ready for the heavy hauling purchases he plans to make this year.

On the other side of the flea-market I ran into this smiling face. Yes I know he looks a little scary, but his wife tells me he's really harmless. This is Tony Mill, KF8MW, the Drake Front Panel reproduction guy showing us all the great front panels to make your Drake radios look like new again. Here is a link to his website: http://www.4cfrontpanels.com