[Boatanchors] Belton, April 18th

[Kees & Sandy]

At Belton we had a conundrum .....do you hope for rain and limited sales (we need the rain) or do we hope for clear sky and settle for dry dirt.
We got rain .........lots of it at times. That kinda put a damper on the outdoor sales but it sure meant a lot of rented spaces inside. The place was pretty full on Saturday. It rained a LOT on Friday and off and on, on Saturday. The number of people attending looked very good and the parking lot had lots and lots of cars, pickups and RVs. If this had been a sunshine weekend, I assume the attendance would have been one of the best. I don't know how well overall sales were but I saw many people walking around with newly purchased items.
I had a good time visiting with friends, wondering around some and giving free stuff to kids (but some don't want even free electronic stuff ....what's this world coming to ?). I also sold a good number of the little kits I have. A friend had asked me to find a set of headphones for use on a vintage crystal radio he's building with his grandson, and as you all know, you need the high impedance type. I found a Trimm Mfg Co of Chicago R-2-A single headphone with the wire head strap. The cord had deteriorated but the headphone housing is made of brass with a bakelite screw on cover. It has two electromagnets and measures 1K ohms at DC .....perfect !  ...and only $1. I even have a galena crystal mounted in lead somewhere in the shop.     
I saw lots of estate stuff and some of it was homebrew. There was a homebrew receiver based on a Collins PTO with the slide rule dial for $25. I checked on it a few times and it was still there. This morning I am wondering how I was able to suppress the strong urge to buy it. Hope some real builder picked it up. Several other pieces of homebrew ..........antenna tuners, transmitters, and amplifiers. One guy asked me what it was. I told him you ask that after you put your hands on it ........and buy it. 
Richard "I buy all the good vintage stuff" was out there as usual but this time he opted for a 3 wheel bicycle for transportation around the building. I didn't see him do a wheelie but he was "fast" to the good deals. Richard even picked up two well used fuel R/C model aircraft from George Griesbeck. Those two planes and one electric helicopter was all the R/C stuff I saw this time. I asked Richard later if he was now into vintage R/C too ? He said, no, this was picked up for his son-in-law.  
The usual qty of Yaesu/Icom/Kenwood items. There was one guy selling a "new" FT-817 with auto tuner, and some extras for $400 ....that's a good price. 
I saw three R-390As at decent prices, the cheapest one was ~$400. Lots of antennas and tower sections outside. And the guy again selling fiberglass cammo net poles for use as antenna masts. How many of those does he have ? 
The only disappointment was that REACT didn't have their coffee, donuts, and hot dogs this year. The commercial vendor in the back for the horse/cow event is just that  ....a commercial vendor and prices accordingly.   
73 Kees K5BCQ