Tortona, 20 giugno 2021

Last Sunday I attended a ham/electronics flea market after 9 months of lockdown, with the open-air location taming the smell of dust, vintage gear (materials, components, grease, ...) and the occasional (unintended) lack of personal hygiene caused by the very hot days. The whole feeling was very positive!

A side view of the location. We were trying the optical QSO on the grass.

For the second consecutive year I have been able to attend the fair in Tortona, which is held in a parking lot under the June Sun. There were approx. 20 tables, with lots of space for chatting, moving around, digging into the boxes. I could recognise a couple of "new entries" amongst exhibitors, that are heirs of SK, which sold some stuff unseen in previous editions.

I went there to meet friends, attempt an optical QSO with Mauro IK1WVQ and deliver the heavy and bulky Tektronix R7603 oscilloscope.

I came home with a N.I.B. Philips DP7-32 CRT (dual color, dual persistence), the Nixie display board from a Rohde&Schwarz EK47 receiver (7 sockets for six ZM1182 tubes, five of which still working), a new 250 MHz probe (for the no-oscilloscope that I have :)), some coax connectors, few large VFD and a board with LED displays.

It was not possible to complete the QSO because my optical transmitter used inefficient LEDs as opposed to Mauro's blindingly TX head, and I had not built the FM modulator. Too bad, because we had a whopping 100 metres in full daylight and his setup had a lot of margin!