A hamfest is a swap meet: tables of used equipment, a flea market in the parking lot, a few dealers, usually a license exam session and often a talk or two. They run from a Saturday morning in a school gym to Dayton's Hamvention, which fills a fairgrounds and draws tens of thousands of people.
Why go
- Used gear is cheap, and hamfests are where the hobby's second-hand market physically happens.
- Test equipment, coax, connectors and hardware — the unglamorous supplies — are far cheaper here
- The people. Half the value of a hamfest is the conversation in the aisle; the other half is
- Exam sessions. Many hamfests host a Volunteer Examiner session, so it is a common place to
than online, and you can buy one connector rather than a bag of fifty.
meeting the operators you have only heard.
upgrade. See exam day.
Buying used without regret
- Bring a handheld and a battery pack. Powering up an unknown radio at the table tells you more
- Ask why it is for sale. "It's a spare" and "it needs work" are different prices.
- Radios: check that it receives on every band, that the display and encoder work, and that the
- Amplifiers: tube amplifiers are cheap for a reason — tubes and transformers are expensive.
- Antennas and coax: used coax is a gamble unless you can measure loss; used aluminum is usually
- Batteries: buy new. A discounted lead-acid or lithium pack of unknown age is not a bargain.
- Bring cash in small bills, a tape measure, a flashlight and a bag with wheels. Prices fall
than the seller will.
transmit LED or meter moves. Buy transceivers you can test; be cautious with anything sold "as-is" and untested.
Assume you will re-tube it.
fine, but count the hardware.
sharply in the last hour, and so does the selection.
Conventions
Larger gatherings — Hamvention, Huntsville, Orlando's HamCation, Pacificon, and the regional conventions — add forums, technical presentations, manufacturer booths, DX and contest dinners, and club meetings. If you are going to buy a new radio in the next year, an hour at a convention comparing front panels is worth more than a month of reviews.
Running one
If your club is putting on a hamfest, the recurring lessons are: publicize it on the state and regional lists as early as you can fix the date, price tables so vendors come back next year, put the exam session in a quiet room, sign the parking, and feed people. NARA members can request promotional material for a table, and listing your event with the state club council and on the NARA club directory costs nothing.
Finding one
- NARA hamfest map — every upcoming hamfest we know of, searchable
- Amateur Radio Events — swap meets, Field Day sites, POTA
- Amateur Radio Weekly — the week's events in a Saturday email.
- Your state association and club council calendars, which usually carry the small local swaps first.
by distance and by how many days it runs, with hours, talk-in and what is on site. Listing your own is free.
activations and public service events alongside the hamfests; strongest in Northern Illinois and the upper Midwest.