Hello Ladies and Gents,

When you hear the word "hamfest", you probably think of a bunch of fat dudes getting down to eat some honey-baked pork products. Nope, this has NOTHING to do with ham, bacon, or pork chops (although they might be served at the food counter). A hamfest is an annual flea market, sponsored by a local amateur ("ham") radio club or organisation that is open to the public to come shop and sell stuff if they want. The main attractions at the hamfest might be seminars, VE (ham license) testing for people to get their first ham radio license or upgrade, and specialty booths from major radio/equipment manufacturers. While these are all very neat, the real focus is the flea market..

Table after table is chock-full of walkie talkies, radio receivers, scanners, antennas, VCR's, computers, laptops, and all kinds of electronic goods. If you are an electronics nut, you will be glad you went to one of these! And if you look around, you just might find a vintage boombox, as I have the last 2 times I went! I picked up a miniature Panasonic for 1$, I will get a pic off the web of this particular model so you can see what I picked up..

Entry to the flea market is usually between 5 or 10 bucks, which gets you usually 2 raflle tickets for a chance to win prizes or money. Once you are in, you can sell outdoors for free, just set your tables up with your stuff and let er rip...However, if you want a table inside one of the building, that may run you anywhere between 10 and 20$ (The hamfest in Princeton, IL this Sunday (6/7) had 12$ tables inside, which I thought was not only reasonable but was a good idea, because it rained for a good portion of the morning)...

If you are wondering how to find where these hamfests are in your area, I would check the ARRL (American Radio Relay League) website (in the US) at www.arrl.org, or if you live in the UK, you can go to the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain) at www.rsgb.org.uk Ham Radio is a small but a very active hobby in all countries, and if you type in (your city) hamfests in a search engine, you are bound to find something nearby!

Hamfests are usually from May to December, but this can change. Not only do I recommend that everyone who has the chance to attend one of these go, but who knows, you might find other things of interest! I recommend getting there VERY EARLY- the early bird gets the worm!

I hope everyone finds this helpful. Thanks and good luck!

Not the place for bbxs really,but yes to amatuer and sw radio.

You'd be quite surprised, Jared. I picked up a Panasonic RX-F9 for 1$. I don't have a digital camera, but I am including a link to show you which one I mean:



And it's in good shape! I just want to alert people of lesser-known places to pick up stuff. A lot of these guys are SW nuts, and boomboxes are often present..You just have to look..

i had the f4 and f9
both very nice mini's
I have been a Ham and active Swler for nr 30 yrs matt,i agreed,just a fact boomboxes are much more likely to be found at swap meets,flea mkts,and thrift stores then at hamfests.
Certainly,radio gear can be had just about anywhere now adays but if boombox collectors attend hamfests looking for scores they'll lv dissapointed more often then not.

I wouldn't be so sure. A lot of these hamfests are advertised in the newspaper, church bulletins, etc and are listed as flea markets. I saw at least 6 or 7 units there, but I didn't want a dual- cassette Yorx model (even though it was in the original box) and I was tempted to buy a single speaker stereo Magnavox, but I was concerned about carting a lot of stuff home...

There were 2 JVC's at one table, but one was sold and the other looked dirty, i think it was an S5L.. When I went back to buy it later, it was gone...

I also saw ANOTHER Marantz/Superscope model CRS 4800, which I bought for 40$. There were other models that I saw, but kost were either smaller AM.FM, or bigger high priced units.

The Wheaton Hamfest in 2 weeks is going to be HUGE, and when I had a booth last year there were a ton of stereo vendors. Many of the sellers are people who were collectors, packrats, pawn shop owners, company vendors, junk collectors, and amateur ops who brought anything electronic with them. If you go there specifically to find one item, that might be disappointing. But I went to 2 Chicago flea markets and 90% of the stuff is Chinese-made housewares, broken stuff, clothing, soap, toliletries, and old tools.

Besides the Hamfests, you might get lucky at Salvation Army or Goodwill too. But sometimes the garbage outweighs the good

Man a long time ago I sold CB and amps at ham fests. The one in Wheaton is a big one that is for sure. I have picked up boomboxes, stereo, and really besides SW and ham and cb, it is a huge garage sale lol. Mannnn I have been out of them for so long I forgot about them lol. Is the one still at grayslake? that one is like 2 days long. I think villa park used to have one winter time at the odeon.

Hey Ernie,

The one at Grayslake has been a done deal since 2004 or 2005 I think. That was the CFMC fest, now they have it somewhere else...That used to be one of the biggest fests in the state, too, aside from Peoria, Peotone, and Boone County...

The Wheaton one is one of the biggest, and Peotone if the weather is good. I was just at the Princeton one, and I sold a Texas Star amp, a few D104s, and a President Madison all within 20 minutes! It will be good for CB sellers, and hopefully I will have enough "play money" when I go there...

I never heard of one at the Odeon, that would be cool because that is pretty close to me

Man i spelled it wrong

Hamfest at the Odeum. Alpha-Numeric Paging Service Changed. M.S. ... Hamfest at the Odeum. Villa Park will be the place for the first hamfest of

Just googled it not much on it. I am not sure if it is still there.

WOW you are close to me! I am in Bolingbrook lol.

Dayton is by far the biggest.
congrats on the marantz matt that's a vg score i have the 4803S it is def one of my favs!

Dumpstermyass, you got that mini-box for a buck??? Way to go Brother!!! That's a better deal that I got for my box at that yard sale for $5.00!!! There it is under my name here!!!

'NUFF SAID

Yup KB, just a buck. I couldn't believe it either, but the tape player had issues. I have since fixed them, but it was a PITA because of the auto-reverse, which was making the tape player stop dead when the head cylinder revolves...

You know, the old Realistic stuff is great quality BTW. I got 4 police radio receivers for 10 bucks at the hamfest, I cleaned the tuners and the cases, and they sound and look new! Never had a problem with Realistic stuff from back in the day....It was the new stuff that was stamped radioshack that I didn't like..(Chinese junk!)

alot of the stuff now from the shack is garbage. The old stuff alot of the sw and amatuer gear was really good

I can dig it!!! Ever since the Tandy Corporation gave it up back in the 90's, Radio Shack changed the name of their stuff to Optimus, that's when they started going down hill!!!

As a matter of fact, I still have an AKAI reel-to-reel and Radio Shack doesn't even carry the blank reels any more!!! They actually used to sell Hi-Biased Reels!!!

Makes me wanna cry.......

'NUFF SAID

Yo KB,

I was an employee at RadioShlock back in 1998-mid 1999, and they still sold take up reels, tape, and had a respectable selection of turntable cartridges and needles! Parts, components, and soldering tools were still readily stocked, and we had a good stream of DIY'ers coming in. Many of them were hams, a hobby I wouldn't get into for another 5 years, and electronic engineers. The electronics weren't the best quality then, but they were decent. I remember the early to mid 1980's as being particularly good for quality...Like you said, when Tandy split, so did the quality...

In fact, I picked up 4 Police receivers (all metal, and about the size of a small stereo receiver)2 had UHF, the others were HF/VHF, for 10 dollars! The build quality is amazing, and they were actually made for RadioShack by GRE, the primary scanner manufacturer back in the day...If I look at the circuit board of one of those and compare it to a new Optimus radio, it is night and day, champagne and crap...

Good Afternoon,

This Sunday was the Antique Radio Club of Illinois (ARCI) meet as well as the SMCC Hamfest at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. There were TONS of old radios, and about 4 boomboxes, all of which I snagged. There was only 1 big one though, and that was a Candle, I dont remember the model number..Ill post pics soon...
The others were mini boxes ( a small Panny, a dual desk Sanyo with 5 band EQ, and a Magnavox Monobox...

Too bad you can't upload pics from your harddrive! That would make things soooo easy..

Got some neat knick knacks, here are a few:



This is a Panasonic RX-3940. Works good! 5$.



Telefunken Gavotte, 8$. Works good too...



Aitron "Wristo" AM Wrist Radio. WOrks good. 10$.



A Unitra "Donata" 611. I picked up 2 of these Unitras, and their operating info ont he case is entirely in Polish! Both the radios were also made in Poland. 5$ apiece, both work well..


I will include more pics of other rlated stuff, including the Candle... Thanks for looking!

I also got these 2, which I thought were cool:

Realistic DX-400 Shortwave/AM/FM/SSB/CW Direct-Entry PLL Receiver. Goes from 150 kHz to 29.999 mHz. This is a pic off the web, mine doesn't have that crap around the display. Works good, cost: 30$. Was 400$ new!



Now THIS is a neat radio! It is a Nova-Tech direction-finding SW/LW/MB and MW radio. I have seen these on eBay going as high as 300$! Price: 50$, unit is in mint condition...



Now I gotta get that 30$ candle model number.....