The largest(?) European(?) German HAM fair for 2025 is over. As in the past, I have planned to limit my fair time to one day but this year I might have needed more hours. Even though the number of exhibitors was apparently lower, the flea market was full of quality stuff.
I perceived a lower number of visitors: even on Thursday evening downtown there were not so many HAMs to be seen wandering on the lake shore/promenade. In contrast, with fewer people walking around it was easier to get close to each table and study the stuff for sale. Maybe there were even less exhibitors than last year and there was more room to walk around.
I spotted the usual Asian guy buying large tubes in quantity but I haven't tried to speak to him.
I skipped tables with microwave stuff, and there were quite a few. So, what did I bring home?
- A board with 8x IV-6 VFD tubes from the Bulgarian guys (also on eBay)
- A set of plastic screwdrivers for tuning RF circuits
- A small Bosch loudspeaker, because it's nice
- A box of HC-6/U XTALs to play with tubes (I bought 1540 kHz then the whole lot)
- A couple 12 Vdc to 340 Vac 4 mA booster "black box", meant for driving CFL lamps
and for the heavy stuff ...
- An HP 4270A Capacitance Bridge with Nixies
We would have tried the HP 4270A that night at home but we lacked the AC power cord. We checked around the flat and there were no IEC C13 cables so we just unscrewed top+bottom covers to have a peek inside. It is al almost all-analog device and the service manual is available online, just in case!
