Text provided by Hoss, WA5ZAI
Ron, AA5RT, and I left Valley Mills about 9 AM on Friday and headed out to Dallas. On our way we stopped at Fry's and I purchased my first Hamfest item. It was a 5299 BTU window air conditioner for my ham shack. Then we went to the Fest and were disappointed by the lack of attendance. Friday afternoon we looked everything over about humteen times, went and checked into the motel, had a bite of lunch and went back to the hamfest. We picked up a few odds and ends like torroids, etc. The attendance was down by quite a bit and there were many empty tables in the arena. Even Kenwood didn't show up and ICOM and Yaesu had small booths in comparison the the past years. After dinner we settled for the night.
On Saturday morning after a solid breakfast (breakfast tacos and all trimmings) we went back to the Fest.
A few more vendors had shown up, but still pretty low. Then the Oklahoma IOOK
contingent arrived. We ran into Mike, N5MS, Stan, N5JFQ, Aaron,
AD5JK, Jim, W5JCS and his pretty lady friend, Cheri. We had a very nice visit at the arena.
Aaron purchased a portable antenna (shown in the photos) which was to be delivered to him in
OKC. I am not sure who else bought any major items, but Ron, AA5RT, ordered a Kenwood item for his mobile
radio.
Since we had seen the Fest very thoroughly, we decided to head back to the Hossienda right after noon.
But Mike and company wanted to go to a Texas barbecue place near the arena.
We caravanned to the place and had a great barbecue lunch (IOOK traditional feed bag).
At the barbecue we ran into Chaz, KA5UPM, and had a nice visit and photo Op with him and the
group.
Just above and the the left is Aaron's new portable antenna. Some day it may actually get put on the air! (Yeah, yeah, dream on!)
Ron and I were home by three PM and it was time to rest from our IOOK
labors!
All in all, although the hamfest sucked(!), we had a nice mini-gathering and had a great time.
I received a HamCom survey and responded by telling them like it was. I wouldn't be surprised if I never
hear from them again. With the disappointed showings at this and the HamVention, I won't be
surprised if the IOOK adopted the Yuma Hamfest as the primary event, Hi Hi.
73, Hoss, WA5ZAI
Thanks to WA5ZAI, N5MS and W5JCS for their contributions towards this page.
