Back to hamfests: Shelby 2021

Made a trip out to our first hamfest in quite a while (last one was back in 2020).

We made the road trip out to the Shelby Hamfest for the first time. It’s one I had been wanting to get to for quite a while now, but it happens the same weekend as Dragon*Con so I never made it until this year.

We drove up Friday afternoon, and Saturday was the only day we spent at Shelby. Got there bright and early as the gates were opening, so we were able to get a decent parking spot. Spent the early morning wandering around the boneyard/flea market checking out the early birds that opened up their tables until the indoor stuff opened up. Checked out the indoor people, then spent the rest of the morning exploring the boneyard.

Lots of people out in the flea market area selling the usual range of really nice gear to miscellaneous stuff. Saw at least 3 or 4 people selling some really nice looking Collins radios, ranging from complete sets to single cabinets. I can see why people like to collect Collins gear. They’re really nice looking units. I got a bit drooly looking at them.

Didn’t really have a big shopping list going to the hamfest, but did end up picking up a few things with the goal of putting mobile VHF radios into the cars in mind. In the boneyard, I found a couple of Fluke multimeters for a pretty good price. Seller didn’t know what condition they were in, but I figured for $10, they would either be decent workbench instruments or fun projects to work on. Also found a D104 mic missing the bottom plate and connector for pretty cheap so I grabbed that too. A few other miscellaneous tool type items rounded out the shopping day at the hamfest. Didn’t see too many Morse code keys, but there was one table that had a selection of older Vibroplex bugs that I was kind of tempted by.

The crowd seemed to be a lot lighter than I expected, even during the middle of the morning and early afternoon. There were a lot of cars in the parking are by the time we left but it didn’t seem that crowded while we were there. I suppose the size of the hamfest helps spread everybody out. Had some fun random encounters with a few other hams that we new, and a nice conversation with Bill Morine/N2COP, ARRL Roanoke Division Vice-Director.

I was too busy wandering around checking things out and trying to decide if I “needed” it or not to get any pictures of the hamfest, but Connie got this early morning-ish photo of the boneyard off in the background.