DX Engineering hosted their first hamfest today, Saturday 10 August, at their shared facility with Summit Racing Equipment in Tallmadge, Ohio. The executive summary - phenomenal, especially for a NEW hamfest. A BIG THANK YOU to DXE. The hamfest comprised of an outdoor flea market located in the North and East paved parking lots; inside DXE selling of demo and open box items; and several information booths (e.g. AMSAT). At 12 Noon, DXE gave away a new Icom IC-9700 via a free raffle. The flea market opened at 0630 for setup. There was already a line at 0615 when I arrived. The DXE Staff and volunteers were excellent (helpful, polite, friendly) during setup and throughout the hamfest. For the flea market you were provided one space to park your vehicle and one adjacent space to setup your equipment and items for sale. The parking spots were large - readily fit my Yukon XL (aka Suburban). One parking area was reserved for those with trailers and larger vehicles. I estimate >100 flea market 'vendors' were setup. No commercial vendors were permitted (obvious reasons - not to detract from our host DXE). If you were not aware - FREE ADMISSION, FREE FLEA MARKET spaces. A lot of interesting items in the flea market and the usual items/sellers you see with the same gear from a year ago. It was nice from my perspective to see virtually every space with ham and electronic items versus inexpensive import trinkets seen at many hamfests. Open to the public at 0800. Very well attended, a 'buying crowd' versus just lookers. Ample paved parking for the public; on-site Tallmadge Police officers; inside bathroom as well as porta-johns outside; trash bins throughout, emptied during the event; on-site food wagon; ....... Most everyone I talked with were pleasantly surprised by the turn out. The wx was on our side, 60's in the early morning warming up to the 70's with low humidity. A big thank you really needs to go out to DXE and Summit Racing - for coordinating and hosting this hamfest. Once again, everyone I spoke with are hoping this becomes an annual event. I would like to hear how others who attended viewed this new hamfest.
Dang. I would have made a special trip to Ohio, but didn't know about it. I need to pay more attention.
DXE pretty much has a handle on it's business. If they have it next year I will drive out from Pittsburgh. Glad it was a success.
I have been a DX Engineering quite a few years, and have been to the store in the past. I am surprised a notice was not send out at a minimum to inform existing customers. Had I known I would have made a day trip over to it. Considering how they generally are "Johnny on the spot" doing business I wonder why they would have overlooked it. 73 Rich
I talked with DXE this weekend at Huntsville (they had an information table in the commercial vendor space). They do plan for this hamfest to be an annual event. The hamfest will be held the second Saturday in August (the 8th in 2020). DXE is exploring the use of the Summit County Fairgrounds as a potential future location "if things get crazy". Sounded like 2020 Hamfest will be hosted at the same location as this year's fest.
I hope you won't mind, but I used your review in the September issue of my club newsletter. Along with a bunch of photos I'd taken, but it's nice to have another point of view!
