Windsor Swap, CT Vintage Radio Swap Meet Report

I arrived around 7AM Saturday morning (the meet started at 8) 
to set up my table, and the parking space on the right side of 
the building was already full of sellers. Had to park about 
half-way down the back of the building. By the time the last 
sellers arrived, they were parking on the left side of the 
building. The seller turn out was among the biggest I've seen 
at this venue.

I walked away from a box of late model HTs on the club table 
that included some Icom IC-2AT, 3AT, and 4AT models. Those are 
the ones with the thumbwheel frequency selection that I like. 
They would have gone home with me at the end of the day of they 
were still there, but someone wanted them more than I. An 
acquaintance of mine grabbed a nice Yaesu FT-470 out of that 
box. That's an early 1990s vintage dual/band HT with a good 
reputation. They went for around $400 bucks back in the day, 
and I don't think he paid much more than a few bucks for it. 
There was a dude who was giving away late model desktop 
computers ranging in condition from "parts unit" to "working 
with a Linux server installed." One of the local 
retro-computing enthusiasts, a hackerspace buddy of mine, 
filled the back of his minivan with old Macs that were either 
free of close to it. I almost bought a 386 Grid laptop from 
him, but someone else beat me to it. Dude had a $40 price tag 
on it. Another seller had a Kaypro CP/M machine. There were a 
bunch of surplus LMR radios, and ham rigs, and antique consumer 
electronics. Then there were the non-electronics folks selling 
records and communications-related ephemera.

My first find for the day was actually in that last category, a 
couple old road maps that they used to give out free at gas 
stations until the mid/late 1970s. I've always been a geography 
nerd and map geek. The Interstate highway build out was mostly 
completed in the early 1970s and paper maps made after that 
time frame are still accurate enough at their scale for use. 
They also don't require batteries, are EMP proof, and can't be 
jammed or spoofed. You can still buy paper maps. I've shown you 
a road atlas for sale at Wal-Mart. They are a bit expensive to 
buy new. Road maps are $7+, and a road atlas will set you back 
$15-$20. You can get them at used for a couple bucks t a swap 
meet like this, but you have to poke around boxes of ephemera.

One item I look for are cheap mid-tier or better desktop police 
scanners. By cheap I mean less than the cost of an RTL-SDR 
purchased online. My criteria for "mid-tier or better" are 
features such as extended VHF low-band coverage of 25 or 29 MHz 
on the low end to 54 MHz. on the high end, UHF milair band 
(225-400 MHz.) coverage, 800 MHz. band coverage, triple 
conversion receiver architecture, and a tuning dial (see Uniden 
BC-9000, Radio Shack PRO-2035/42, et al). Even a low-tier 
police scanner will have a better RF front end than an RTL-SDR, 
and despite all the other software available, no one so far as 
I know has developed software for an RTL-SDR that lets it do a 
point search of several memory channels (discrete frequencies) 
from an overall frequency coverage range of 25-1300 MHz. the 
way my one of my newest acquisitions can.

The second acquisition for the day was a Radio Shack PRO-2005 
scanner for $10. This was a $400+ scanner back in the day, and 
I remember after that ECPA nonsense in early 1990s paying $350 
for a used one at the Gaithersburg, MD hamfest in 1995 and 
congratulating myself on finding a bargain. Normally, any Radio 
Shack PRO-2004, 2005, 2006, 2035, or 2042 for sale for $20 or 
less is a no-brainer, but this one had an extra BNC connector 
on the back labelled "455 KHz. IF." hobbyists installed an IF 
tap on scanners so they can use a shortwave receiver tuned to 
the IF frequency for receiving sideband on the CB band, and on 
the VHF/UHF ham bands (aka "weak signal"). Upon further 
inspection the BNC connector was wired by way of a capacitor 
and resistor in series to test point TP2 on the main board, 
making the modification a discriminator tap, and not an IF tap. 
That saved me the hassle of doing it myself. Whoever did the 
modification may have had no idea what it was called, but they 
did a nice job on it. I would have used an RCA (preferred) or 
1/8" phone jack instead of a BNC since the output was audio and 
not RF. The previous user was also nice enough to clip the 
diode for full 800 MHz. frequency coverage so I can use the 
scanner to check for old AMPS phones being modified and used as 
surveillance devices. The PRO-200x series are responsible for 
the resurgence of RF hacking back in the late 1980s/early 1990s 
with the late Bill Cheek and others writing about scanner mods 
and such. I'll get more into the PRO-200x series in a future 
post.

The second acquisition was another desktop scanner, a $5 Radio 
Shack PRO-2018 circa 2002 which was made by GRE. This is a 
basic 200 channel analog non-trunking unit, but it has 25-54 
MHz. VHF-low band coverage. If it doesn't get a discriminator 
tap for monitoring local VHF and UHF DMR comms, it'll wind up 
monitoring 10m FM for band openings, local VHF aeronautical 
traffic, or something else like that

The final item had manage to elude my attention until the end 
of the day. I suspect the seller had it in the trunk of his car 
until the 11th hour because I would like to believe that I 
would quickly notice a World War 2 US Military BC-312 shortwave 
receiver on a sellers table. It was clean inside and not 
missing anything obvious. It was also the end of the day, and 
the seller didn't want to haul all 40 some-odd pounds of 
boatanchor back into his car, so after some brief negotiation I 
hauled it to my car for $20. In my defense the price was right, 
and at least it wasn't an R-390 or SP-600. Everyone needs an 
old hollow-state shortwave receiver that is EMP resistant, and 
can be fixed with basic electronics tools and some knowledge 
you can find online. You will wind up paying more than $20 for 
a Tecsun, and you won't find a tech manual for it that shows 
you how to fix and maintain it.

It was definitely a buyer's swap. if you were selling, your 
results depended, as usual, on how many people showed up and if 
they were interested in what you were selling. I didn't do 
great with sales, but I still came out ahead even with all the 
stuff I bought. There weren't many buyers this time around for 
whatever reason. My wife posited that many people didn't show 
because of Father's Day being the day after. The next one at 
this location is in September. We'll see what happens then.