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Thunderbird Hamfest 2019

 

Thunderbird Hamfest 2019

Filed in Station on Jan.20, 2019

One of my favorite hamfest did not disappoint me this year. I always find good bargains on tools and equipment at this hamfest.

My first purchase was an MFJ-267 1KW Dummy Load/Wattmeter.  The seller had all of his equipment priced at the exact same point – $68.00.  That seemed a good enough price that I did not even haggle over it.  He said he just needed to get rid of some stuff…

I got it home and hooked it up, and it appears to work, though may need a calibration.

 
MFJ-267 Dummy Load/Wattmeter

My next purchase was a 250 Watt dummy load.  The seller of this item told me that he makes and sells these on Ebay for $35 or so.  He was selling them here for $30, with a N to PL-259 adapter included.  It looks like good workmanship, so I bought one.  He says it will do 100 watts continuous, and 250 watts for 1 min on, 5 Min off.

 
Dummy Load front

 
Dummy Load Back

Next, I found some old HP AC voltmeters for sale at $5.00 each.  I picked up one True RMS voltmeter (HP-3400A) and one Averaging voltmeter (HP-400E).  These are good for tuning up rigs, as they have the DB scale, and are calibrated in RMS values.

I plugged them in at home and brought them up slow on the variac.  They seem to work ok, comparing them to another meter that I have.  I just had to wriggle the scale knob a bit to get good reads sometimes.  I’ll probably just need to clean contacts.

 
HP-400E AC Voltmeter

 
HP-3400A RMS Voltmeter

Finally, I found two ARRL Handbooks for my collection.  1949 and 1963.  I like these old handbooks.  They had great projects in them. I gave $5.00 for the pair.

 
1949 ARRL Handbook

 
1963 ARRL Handbook

So, another good haul this year!

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