Ham Fair 2006 | Japan Ham Fair

This weekend was the 30th Japan Ham Fair at one of the convention centers in Tokyo. Nearly 30,000 visitors were expected across the two days of the event.

The “club” area is always very active as it provides not only a place for clubs to promote themselves and demonstrate their particular interests, but it also serves as the flea market area. Items offered range from junk computer parts, to commercial or military surplus test equipment, to classic shortwave receivers and ham gear. There is some great homebrew equipment on display, both in the official building contest but also at some of the clubs, with the JARL QRP Club always being a stand-out.

Highlights of the commercial exhibits included:

Tokyo Hy-Power appears to be on a roll, with what seems like more new product announcements each year. Two of the new offerings this year look very interesting are:
- prototype HT-200 QRP transceiver
- legal limit solid state amplifier (see the article in the Sep/Oct QEX)
Standard had lots of Yaesu FT-2000s for the crowd to play with, claiming shipments would start by the end of the month.
Kenwood showed a special edition black TS-2000 with a Trio faceplate. They also showed prototypes of a D-Star transceiver and a new dual-band mobile rig.
Icom had a IC-9500 communications receiver on display for drooling over.
Alinco had new low cost single band HTs.
AOR has a new “DC to light” software defined receiver.

Japan Ham Fair 2006 - the 30th year of the Ham Fair. From about 26,000 people in the 3 day event in 1977, the Ham Fair grew to about 60,000 visitors in the early 90s. Since changing to a 2 day format in 2002, there have been about 27,000 to 29,000 visitors each year.