Myers at the WRAM Show
George M. Myers — Photos by Tim Myers
Overview
There is always too much to see (several times over), too many people to meet, and too much enthusiasm to be shared in too short a time to do a proper job of examining any individual item. When you have the task of "looking and listening" while acting as a representative of a magazine of many diverse readers (which I was), you suspend your personal critical judgments because you are "everybody." You try to approach everything with an open mind, willing to be convinced that each model on display for judging is important to you, and that each product offered for sale can fill a need that hasn't been satisfied before.
The job is to observe everything, listen to everyone, accept what people tell you, try to accept new ideas, and then to pick a tiny number of these things to be highlighted in the magazine. In the end, you pick the things with the intent of entertaining and exciting the readers. With all that said, here we go again on a highly opinionated tour of the highlights of the 1984 WRAM Show held at the Westchester County Center, White Plains, NY, on February 25–26, 1984.
Display tables and models
This show included eight display tables full of models presented for judging in categories such as:
- Military
- Sport Scale
- Boats
- Helicopters
- Sailplanes
- (and others)
As you might expect, all of these models were outstanding examples of design ingenuity, craftsmanship, and finish. You'd like to spend days examining just one of them, but you don't have the time. Since you have only minutes to look, the display takes on the characteristics of a modeler's "Flash Dance" — an eye-popping display of artistry, but none of the sweat behind it.
A movie theater adjacent to the models ran films more or less continuously. I have no idea what was shown, but I suspect it was a great place for parents to leave the kids while they went off to see the displays in relative peace. (Editor: Four movies from the AMA Film Library were the main attractions.)
AMA District II meeting
An AMA District II meeting was held in the theater on Saturday afternoon, chaired by Vice President John Byrne. Among the matters discussed in the lively session was "What to do, and what has AMA already done, in response to the announcement of the Kraft Channel Master?" (This is the unit with the 50 switch-selectable RC channels.) Members came away with the confidence that the AMA is on the ball on this matter. AMA President John Grigg and Executive Director John Worth had discussed the issue with Kraft executives fully a month before the meeting.
Exhibits and vendors
Upstairs, there were wall-to-wall people studying products and listening to sales pitches at 108 booths. One booth was manned by AMA headquarters people (and volunteers) who handled everything from verifying memberships to working out insurance problems. A lot of AMA business gets done at trade shows. These folks were working in a "Christmas sales rush" environment, and I think members are getting their money's worth.
Products and notable items
The products on display ranged from H/L gliders to an RC flight simulator (including a crash-damage assessment module). There is quite a contingent cost to that simulator, however, since you need an Apple II+ or Apple IIe with joysticks to go with it. A disk and manual is obtainable from:
- Strobe-F-Light, 8405 Avenue N, Brooklyn, NY 11236
- Dave Brown Products, 4560 Lay-high, Hamilton, OH 45013
New radio systems ranged from Ace RC's Olympic at a bare-bones $130 to Futaba's FAI helicopter radio at $799.95. None of those shown had switchable radio frequencies, but virtually all had exchangeable frequency modules. You might ask what the difference is: the practical difference is the cost and logistics of owning many separate modules (for example, the cost of 49 modules and where to store them).
The pictures tell the rest of my story.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
