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Electronics Flea Market
- MiscIdeaMaker99 3y ago(( sigh )) I wish I lived closer.
- Loughla 3y agoI 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.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoYeah, 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.
- bombcar 3y agoSurplus 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.
- jeffdubin 3y agoDon't count out local hamfests. Yeah, some tiny ones are a little disappointing, but bigger cities usually have respectable events. Even if you're not into ham radio, you'll find plenty of non-radio tech stuff. And there there's the Dayton (OH) Hamvention which is /huge/ - people/groups/vendors drive in from all over the US and setup flea market booths, to sell and buy stuff, but also to just sit around and talk tech with the other attendees.
- TimMeade 3y agoI remember going to this in the 80's and 90s'. Was astounding what you could find. Is it still going? I moved to Florida in the early 00's but still have family in the Dayton area....
- technothrasher 3y agoI used to go as a kid in the 80's with my dad every year. The Hara Arena where it was held is no more. It was closed up for years and was finally torn down a couple years ago. But the Hamvention is still going on at a new location. https://hamvention.org/ https://hamvention.org/
- tveyben 3y agoMeeToo, Denmark is a little too far away (9 timezones…:(
- mikewarot 3y agoI'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.
- notbeuller 3y agoI’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.
- shrubble 3y agoThere are the VCF swap meets, vcfed.org (corrected URL) ; might be one close to you.
- tverbeure 3y agoThis year, I bought an HP 5334A universal counter for $60 at the flea market. A week later, I bought an HP 5384A frequency counter through Craigslist from a local in Los Altos. When I told him about the 5334A purchase, he replied “Oh yeah, I was the project lead for that one.” You can see the loot here: https://tomverbeure.github.io/2023/06/16/Frequency-Counting-with-Linear-Regression.html https://tomverbeure.github.io/2023/06/16/Frequency-Counting-.... I bought another HP counter today in Monterey… It’s like bicycles: the perfect amount to own is +1.
- neilv 3y agoFor New England people, there's the MIT Swapfest. https://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit/ https://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit/ https://phys.org/news/2016-09-mit-flea-specializes-rare-obscure.html https://phys.org/news/2016-09-mit-flea-specializes-rare-obsc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8thW6anxdTQ&t=1m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8thW6anxdTQ&t=1m
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dang 3y agoRelated: Electronics Flea Market - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30965183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30965183 - April 2022 (38 comments)
- tverbeure 3y agoMy wife is no fan of the SV electronics flea market… 20 years from now, I expect to be the one with a booth there trying to sell all the test equipment that I’ve gathered over years.
- iancmceachern 3y agoTotally, when this popped up I had 2 thoughts, 1 I should go and buy more stuff and 2 maybe I should take my stuff there to sell.
- sneak 3y agoIs there an online equivalent that isn’t eBay?
- tverbeure 3y agoCraigslist… Good finds are rare, but if you check it every day, you’ll find some good stuff eventually.
- WalterBright 3y agoI bought a couple very nice oscilloscopes from the pawn shop for $40 each. One for me, one as a gift! I enjoy browsing thrift stores and pawn shops because you never know what you'll find there, and it's all dirt cheap.
- Scoundreller 3y ago> Sellers must register with form CDTFA-410-D upon entry to the flea market as required by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. wow, California has thought of everything! > For example, a person who is disposing of unwanted household items, and does this no more than twice in any twelve-month period, is generally considered to be an occasional seller Sounds unfortunate if your unwanted stuff is illiquid, but I guess there's some wiggle room if the official form phrases it that way
- actionfromafar 3y agoIt's not disposed of until the sale!
- johndmcmaster 3y agoGlad its coming back. Need to feed the microscopes fresh silicon!
- hawflakes 3y agoHad fun browsing there twenty years ago after a fellow older tinkerer told me about it. I once managed to get a motherboard for cheap to replace my friend’s “server” that was hosting his homepage over his very fast at the time 768kbps DSL connection.
- joshxyz 3y agoyou guys rekt the site, amazing.
- ipsum2 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20231229033137/https://www.electronicsfleamarket.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231229033137/https://www.elect... The most important information: The Electronics Flea Market tentatively resumes on March 10, 2024. The planned location (directions) is parking lot 3 at West Valley College in Saratoga: West Valley College 14000 Fruitvale Ave Saratoga, California 95070 The hours are from 6:00AM until 12:00 Noon.