COVID-19 caused a lot of activities to be cancelled in 2020, including nearly all radio swap meets. A lot of radio collectors missed the opportunity to get together with fellow collectors for fun and fellowship for this reason.

As for myself, I had had major surgery in January 2020 followed by another surgery in August, so between the surgeries and the chemotherapy treatments, I was pretty much out of commission for the entire year and would not have been able to attend any meets anyway.

Finally, a swap meet within a reasonable driving distance was announced – Radiorama 29, to be held on Saturday, August 7.

I honestly did not think I would be able to attend, but Debbie insisted that I try to do so. I really wanted to be able to see some of my radio collector friends and acquaintances, so I readily agreed to try to go.

So, we packed up my F-150 with radios and made the three-hour drive to the Queen City on a Friday afternoon. Traffic was fairly busy until we neared Erlanger, Kentucky, which is on the Kentucky side of Cincinnati, at which point traffic on I-71/I-75 slowed to a crawl.

I later learned that much of that traffic tie-up was caused by construction work on the Brent Spence Bridge, a very old structure which I consider to be unsafe and have tried to avoid for many years. So, it was an easy decision to take I-275 east to I-471 north in order to cross into Cincinnati.

Unfortunately, the crawling traffic persisted, off and on, especially at interchanges which I needed to take. And it wasn’t even rush hour – it was the middle of the afternoon!

Eventually, we reached our hotel and crashed for the evening.

The next morning, it was time to go to Raffel’s Catering on Reading Road, site of the 2021 Radiorama.

I had planned on setting up to sell inside the building, but decided to go ahead and set up in the parking lot instead since several other people were doing the same. It was much easier this way as it meant I did not have to carry multiple items into the building. Having brought a table along, all I had to do was open the tailgate, pull everything out, set up the table and set the radios out for people to see and, hopefully, buy. The weather started out cloudy, but the clouds soon gave way to sun and it became a beautiful, if warm and humid day.

Now allow me to share the photographs I took at the meet:

Wheelin’ and dealin’.

Here is our setup. I had radios on the table, on totes at either side of the table, and on the tailgate of my truck.

A view of our setup from the side.

1937 Philco model 37-11X – early version

A 1924 Super-Zenith VII.

An RCA model 128. I was tempted to buy this, but I passed.

A Philco model 37-640X console.

A few folks did set up inside the building at Raffel’s. Here is a picture.

There were some nice radios on display inside as well. This is just one of them:

An Atwater Kent breadboard “undercover”

The auction area would soon fill up with donations from vendors. I also left a couple items behind in the hopes that they would find good homes.

Some of the radios which sold in the auction. I did not notice the RCA 118 (?) tombstone at lower right when I took this photo.

I had anticipated that this would be a well-attended swap meet since it was the first in the area since 2019 – and I was right. And as it happened, it was the first swap meet I was able to attend since 2019, as the last radio meet I had been to was Radiofest in the Chicago area.

How good a meet was it? Only four of the 13 radios I took to the meet followed me back home, so I can’t complain.

And since this was the furthest I had been from home since 2019, it truly was a blessed weekend as everything went very well indeed. It was great to be able to see several folks whom I had not seen in years, to be able to be part of another radio meet and to see what everyone had brought along. It was absolutely wonderful!

Now let me tell you about what happened after the meet…

I had promised Debbie a lunch at the Wiedemann Brewery & Taproom. We drove there after we left the meet. Unfortunately, the city of Cincinnati had blocked off every possible road which led to the Wiedemann Brewery!

Strike 1.

Sadly, we decided to find some other place for lunch.

The next eatery we tried had a large sign just inside the door which read something to the effect of “Please wait for a table – We are very short staffed.” After standing there several minutes with none of the few employees even acknowledging our presence, we left.

Strike 2.

We tried another restaurant close to the second one. The place was packed, and we were quoted a wait time of 30 minutes. No thanks.

Strike 3 – we’re out!

But not quite. After discussing the situation, we finally settled for Frisch’s Big Boy which was pleasant – but not Wiedemann’s.

After returning to the hotel after lunch, I was completely exhausted and so we did not leave the room for the rest of the day.

The next day – Sunday – was sunny and beautiful. The drive home was uneventful and traffic was better, especially through the Cincinnati metro area. It was really good to get back home and see the cats again. And it was even better to have fewer radios in the collection!

I am so glad that I listened to Debbie when she suggested that I try to make this trip. As I mentioned above, it truly was a blessed weekend which I will look back on with fondness for quite some time.

Photo at top: Downtown Cincinnati as viewed from Cut-in-the-Hill or “Death Hill”, I-71/I-75 North, Covington, KY, May 2015. Photo by Debbie Ramirez. All other photos above by the author.