The Tokyo Amateur Radio Festival 2011 took place on August 27 – 28. There are quite a few videos on YouTube. Here are a selection:
- Comet Booth. This video shows a selection of many products that I don’t think are available here in the U.S., including high-power antenna tuners and a bunch of antennas.
- Icom Booth. Products seen at the Icom booth include the R-9500 receiver, the IC-7800 transceiver, and the ID-31 handheld. I don’t believe the ID-1 is available in the U.S. It looks like it has just about everything, including D-Star and APRS.
Small-group booths. This video shows a bunch of small booths off the main floor. There’s a booth for the JARL (yes, I know they’re not a small group), the Japan Ladies Radio Society, and a booth where they were teaching kids how to solder (see image at right).- Flea Market. This looked quite a bit like what you’d see here in the U.S., except that it was inside and I didn’t see any Heathkits. Towards the end of this video, there is a guy selling tubes, though.
A couple of observations:
- The venue is a lot cleaner and more pleasant than Hara Arena (where the Dayton Hamvention is held).
- There seemed to be lots of families and kids there. Way more than you see at Dayton or other U.S. ham events.
- It didn’t seem very crowded. I’m not sure whether that’s because they didn’t get as big a crowd as they expected or they reserved ample space for the crowd.
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