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Electronics Flea Market

electronicsfleamarket.com

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Re: Electronics Flea Market

#3
I'd love to see what shows up at a Silicon Valley hamfest. Having it outdoors cuts way down on Covid risks, so that's a big time plus. Does anyone have any good stories about unusual finds at past events?

Unfortunately, I'm 2000+ miles East of there.

Re: Electronics Flea Market

#6

(( sigh )) I wish I lived closer.

I love living in the Midwest for 99% of the time.

Open space, quiet, people leave me alone, I can pursue side projects because the cost of living is so low.

EXCEPT for things like this. This type of thing makes me yearn for the coast.

Re: Electronics Flea Market

#7

I'd love to see what shows up at a Silicon Valley hamfest. Having it outdoors cuts way down on Covid risks, so that's a big time plus. Does anyone have any good stories about unusual finds at past events? Unfortunately, I'm 2000+ miles East of there.

I’d been going since the mid 80s when it was “the foothill flea market” colloquially. I can’t say I’ve ever found any “wow, this is unique” things - honestly, most of the time it’s “neat” things that come home with me, get played with for a few years, and then I’ll buffer everything collected up and sell at the next flea market. In this way the hobby can be mostly self supporting - but it’s also very satisfying to return home with an empty station wagon.

It’s also a great way to reunite with coworkers from times past, although I have really a bad memory for faces.

Re: Electronics Flea Market

#8
post #6

(( sigh )) I wish I lived closer.

I love living in the Midwest for 99% of the time. Open space, quiet, people leave me alone, I can pursue side projects because the cost of living is so low. EXCEPT for things like this. This type of thing makes me yearn for the coast.

Yeah, back in the midwest after having spent 26 years in "The Valley" (no, not that valley, Silicon Valley).

I hit the Electronics Flea Market only a few times because, back then, I was not a morning person. I remember showing up at 7:00 AM or so once when the dark was just lifting and seeing people leaving with their small wire rolling carts filled with electronics. I imagined that all the good stuff got scooped up at 6:00.

More often though I would do the "Saturday crawl" to all the surplus electronics stores — when there were a lot of surplus electronics stores. Sadly over the decades I saw them all but disappear entirely.

It's probably just as well I am back in the midwest though. I'm already too much of a hoarder.

Re: Electronics Flea Market

#9

I'd love to see what shows up at a Silicon Valley hamfest. Having it outdoors cuts way down on Covid risks, so that's a big time plus. Does anyone have any good stories about unusual finds at past events? Unfortunately, I'm 2000+ miles East of there.

There are the VCF swap meets, vcfed.org (corrected URL) ; might be one close to you.

Re: Electronics Flea Market

#10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love living in the Midwest for 99% of the time. Open space, quiet, people leave me alone, I can pursue side projects because the cost of living is so low. EXCEPT for things like this. This type of thing makes me yearn for the coast.

Yeah, back in the midwest after having spent 26 years in "The Valley" (no, not that valley, Silicon Valley). I hit the Electronics Flea Market only a few times because, back then, I was not a morning person. I remember showing up at 7:00 AM or so once when the dark was just lifting and seeing people leaving with their small wire rolling carts filled with electronics. I imagined that all the good stuff got scooped up…

Surplus electronics stores were the absolute best thing about the 80s into 90s, but they're mostly all dead now.

Which is annoying, because back in the 90s you had hell to pay to get anything to work with a computer (usually abusing the parallel port); now any Raspberry Pi can easily control random doodads you might find, but there's no place to find them.

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