I made good on my promise to not drag home too much junk this year, but a few boat anchors did manage to make their way in my car. Both of them had an immediate use, but the one that was going to go in to the rack didn’t work. Not a big deal, but still…it gives me a chance to re-engineer some stuff. The rest of the items were parts for later use, whenever the need arises.
Just some random bits I picked up. An old LED display (made in the USA!) from Rat Shack, and a 1971 Allied/Radio Shack catalog. The catalog is fascinating, the prices that some of the things cost was incredible, and it’s interesting seeing some of the Shack’s staples like the Weather Cube. It’s fun to look through it and see things I wish I could still buy.
A vendor was selling older Jim-Pak parts, as well as a handful of things from other vendors. Some were $1 per, others were 2 or 4 per $1. I picked a selection of parts, as well as some of those oddball fuses old meters used for their current sections.
This is a unit that was meant to monitor the audio feeds in a studio. At it’s heart, it’s two “channels” with a center channel. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Examination reveals a lot of white corrosion on the input board, and it looks like some water was spilled and lay on the board for a long period of time. That’s not really a big deal, I’m thinking a couple of LM386 ICs can fix this guy right up. I’m not interested in studio accuracy, I want something for my rack that I can connect to the plugboard for audio testing.
2025: it’s going to auction at a local club.
According to the vendor, this works. Well…it didn’t. Mostly. I picked it up for parts since many of these are being torn down for the displays so they can become clocks. :( The device itself had a hard life, evidenced by the replacement screws in the bottom and the considerable cosmetic damage to the unit itself. It had all of it’s feet and bail, so that’s quite nice.
An examination on the inside revealed many repairs, some boards that had left their slots, and a missing fuse. Bringing the device up on power revealed that it indeed did not work, the master clock was not present so the device wouldn’t sample. One of the tubes was also partially bad, but it had the incredibly rare polarity indicating tube, probably worth the price of the device itself.
While cleaning the card edges I found that the clock card had a transistor leg lifted, so someone was troubleshooting the device when it was put aside. As this was supposed to be a parts unit, I’m not sure how far I want to go fixing it - if at all - but it will be the subject of a future post detailing the examination.
This is one of Radio Shack’s oddball devices from the CB radio era. It’s a crystal-controlled device that listens to Channel 9, which was commonly used as the emergency channel It was designed for antenna passthrough, and has it’s own speaker. If I can find a schematic for this, I may see if I can re-tune it to Channel 19, since there’s still a little activity there.
A friend of mine said he wanted a 2-pin cable for a battery box project he made. Said he needed an extension, so I found this. It’s not going to get warm anytime soon.
This was a CB-era piece in the bins with the Jim-Pack parts. I don’t know why I got this other than it’s funny. Rip-off characters, anyone?
The slim haul wasn’t because I didn’t see things I wanted. I did. A lot of it. There were a couple of pieces that I saw that I wanted to bring home, but didn’t have a need for - a WWV receiver and some other devices among them. I figured if they were there Sunday, I’d bargain, but they weren’t. That’s me being told that I don’t need them, leave them where you found them.
(But you know very well if I see that receiver again I may pick it up because I’m being told it’s still here so you know you want it!)
Overall, I think I got some good stuff. The meter may make an interesting project, should I decide to repair it, but I think it’s just parts with a good plug-in for my other devices.
Next show is Butler, PA, and then nothing for a few month. Stay tuned for some show posts from that one, and some detail posts on a few of the devices I’ve picked up over the last year.
This is generally a smaller show, but it’s one where good deals can be had - some of the “Dayton” items show up without the “Dayton” prices! I’ve always brought home a decently priced trinket or two from this one.
This year, they return to the Butler Farm Show grounds, with a single day of show on Sunday. See you there!
Breezeshooters Hamfest
Butler Farm Show
625 Evans City Road
Butler PA 16001
We all had a good time at Dayton this year. Weather was very cooperative, with temps in the 80s and most of the rain being confined to Friday evening and early Saturday morning. (It wouldn’t be Dayton without Rain, Snow, Tornadoes, or 100F heat, now would it?)
As usual, there was a lot of good stuff to be seen and had, and I limited myself to things I thought I could immediately use - for the most part. The flea market was full, and the exhibit halls were packed as usual. So without further ado, here are my pictures of the event.
Equipment on a table.
A bunch of nice looking radios.
Some Hallicrafters radios.
Some random equipment.
Many vendors just had assortments of goodies.
Don't be a cuck.
Some random stuff. Bought a meter from here.
A TRS-80 and it's 8” disk drive system.
A random panel from Unisys' weather division.
Some nice looking HP equipment.
An Apple IIe complete system.
Gas Discharge Display DVM. Made with Unobtanium.
An interesting device with Extra Chain.
Meters 'n stuff.
The little CB device on top went home with me.
Do I need another cap checker? No…but….
More stuff. Stuff everywhere!
This radio looked good and sounded great.
I don't know but it looks cool.
An interesting tube checker.
Truckloads of stuff.
Ring ring ring ring corless phone!
Antenna tower, anyone?
Stacks 'n stacks of stuff.
Other than accepting RF, I have no idea…
An old scope and, um, stuff.
The label said GPS modules for 3G devices.
Radios, radios, radios.
A TS1000 and a Zenith Data Systems laptop.
Seeing less of these guys every year.
Stuff left on the do not want table.
Parts!
Antennas.
More stuff.
A relay from a railroad shack.
It might need a cord.
A lot of parts and equipment. The meter had battle scars.
Studio video monitors, apparently just removed from use.
This year, I made it two days instead of just one - perhaps next year I’ll try for all three. There was plenty of stuff to be had, and I limited myself to some parts units and some odds ‘n ends. I think the total damage this year was under $200, and that included food and drinks for myself and my fellow show-goer.
I’m in the process of cleaning up the pictures I took, and will be posting those and my haul over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
Some time ago, I changed my email address for job contacts to a domain-based email instead of a generic gmail account. This was mostly so I could track where all of the spam was coming from, since I tend to leave my profiles alone once I’ve found employment. I noticed something right away:
Almost all of the spam was coming from monster.com
During the boom in late 2021 and 2022, I would sometimes get 20-30 a day from offshore recruiters, multiple contacts from different people in the same company in regards to a job that wasn’t worth your time. This slowed somewhat to about 15-20 a week, but all of it was offshore recruiters that just matched a keyword and had no clue as to what they were recruiting for - or even that someone else from their company had contacted me.
I turned off the monster.com account, and… silence.
All of that junk, those $20/hr jobs in San Francisco, those 3 month contracts in North Dakota, those jobs that were completely mismatched to my skillset have all vanished. It’s both sad and interesting to see how one of the first big online career sites has fallen, but that’s their problem. They’re making money from all of these offshore recruiters pulling profiles. They’re not going to do a thing to disturb their golden goose even though it’s totally useless for the end user.
What’s worse, is that my state of residence uses monster as their backend for the unemployment system. Monster used to automagically connect the two, something it didn’t bother telling you about. I only found out this one day when someone told me they found my profile on ohiomeansjobs.com - I had never heard of the site but found that it was just monster.com with a red bird instead of a purple snorkelwacker. Even better - if you’re unemployed, it used to not let you make changes to monster because you were a “protected jobseeker” due to the unwanted connection to the Ohio site. As soon as I left this status I made sure to disconnect the two by deleting and re-creating the monster account with a different email address, and filling the Ohio site with junk because it’s just monster, i.e. spam, with a different name. You can’t delete that one for years, even though it clearly used to say you could.
The moral of the story here is that things change, and what was once useful is no longer necessary. Monster is a zombie clone of itself, and by association, so is Ohio Means Jobs.
There’s nothing I can do about it except say “Sorry, it’s not me - it’s you. Bye.”
It’s always cool (and kind of sad) to open a piece of equipment and see the GE Textolite T on the circuit board.
This was manufactured by the Coshocton, OH GE plant on South 2nd street in the 1970s. The plant opened to make laminated plastics under the trade name Textolite, and made various other things over the years including plastic parts for appliances, and raw circuit board.
It opened in 1947, and closed in 2004, a victim of declining manufacturing in the USA, and the drive for ever-increasing profits by GE. It probably would have closed at some point, as GE has sold their appliance division to Haier and there’s no reason for a Chinese company to manufacture here.
Out of all the businesses listed on that page, only Fisher remains. RIP, we hardly knew ye.
I tried to limit myself to Small Things this year, and not drag home any projects. I almost succeeded!
The meters are of particular note, one was an old, old, old unit with a telephone test jack on it. I occasionally have need to test single-line analog jacks, so I offered the guy $10 for it and he took it. The other meter, an Ohio-made Triplett, was a beast of a unit costing $200 when new in 1992. It’s loaded with functions, and has internal relays to isolate and switch inputs. Quite unusual and cool.
The other items were simply parts, unusual test equipment, or books. Not pictured are some RCA tube manuals I picked up for $5 each. You’ve seen those before.
The ZM-11/U - this is an interesting piece of equipment. It’s a fairly precise bridge for checking capacitors and inductors, and uses an eye tube as an aid to the relative quality of the device under test. It’s in pretty good shape physically, a few dents and dings and one broken bail on a clip.
Electrically, the vendor said that it worked (and it all lights up,) but that the internal 1Khz source was dead. Feed it an external precision source and it’s fine. I’m planning on digging into this device at some point, it needs a cord and some minor cleanup. I’ve already removed the line cord as it was in bad shape. When I get to it, that will be it’s own post.
Next up is Dayton on the 19th of May, but until then, enjoy the pictures!
Some older-style threaded soldering iron parts.
A stack of IBM-PC related books from the 80s. From TAB of course…
An odd voltage standard. Need to find a cord for this.
This was unusual enough to come home with me.
As was this one. Still had all the docs and paperwork with it.
This was the first time I’ve attended this show. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it turned out to be pretty good for being such a small show. I spent about an hour and a half wandering the two halls, looking at thing and re-checking them to make sure they didn’t want to come home with me. I left several things behind but brought home several more.
This show was at the Tuscarawas County Fairgrounds, and occupied one of the commercial buildings. There was mention of a “trunkfest,” so I suspect that there may have been some outside stuff had it not been a rainy day. Overall, however, it was a good way to spend a Saturday morning. I’ll probably go next year, time permitting, since it’s so close.
Random items from an estate sale.
A box of speakers and soldering iron parts.
Interesting old books there…
Tube manuals and a portable iron.
A bunch of random equipment. I've seen some of this before - at Dayton?
Wow, that's green!
A meter with telephone test jacks.
A beautiful (and temperamental!) Nordemende radio.
A ZM-11/U Test Bridge. Has a bad 1Khz source.
A project radio and a HV probe. Wanted both, left them there.
Things from the past.
A couple of homebrew pieces.
An automotive voltage power supply. 50A @ 13.8VDC!
An excellent condition TV-2 (with an appropriate price!)
A radiotelephone unit - B.C. (Before Cellular!)
A giant load bank with extra elements. A steal at that price.
