[AMRadio] River Radio and getting fired up.

[Brett Gazdzinski]

You have got to wonder what would happen to all the equipment
and rare parts of some people that pass away.

There was an older man down the street from me who passed away 
about a year ago.
I did not know him, but knew his garage was so packed with stuff,
the door would not close.

After he died, someone can over to clean out the house, and got
a VERY large dumpster.
My next door neighbor came over and gave me some stuff he
pulled from the dumpster, as he knows I am a ham.

The man who died worked for RCA in Camden NJ for years, and
had basically a house full of tubes, hifi tube stuff, general electronics
parts, test gear, manuals, tube TV parts, experimental RCA prototypes,
ALL of which went out in the dumpster.
My neighbor got some nice tools, bench grinder, drill press, hand
tools, etc.

There was another house cleanout a few blocks away sometime before that
where I found piles of electronics parts.

I also found a trailer full of tubes, parts, test equipment, and short
wave receivers at a local garden place.
The owner said it was his brothers, who passed away.
I bought some of it, for very low prices, and fixed up the
various short wave radios (cheaper tube types) and gave them away
to people on one of the mailing lists I was on, a qrp one
I think.
A great way to promote ham radio and short wave listening.
 

My wife knows nothing about my junk, and despite the fact I tell
her tubes and HI FI transformers are worth a lot of money, she would
likely have it put in the dumpster.
I tell her to call one of the local guys to sell some of it for
her, or just give it to them, but she just might want to
be rid of it.

So I think its important to make plans, anyone can drop dead
at any time.

It sounds like a useful service to have someone clean out the mess
and not burden friends and relatives with the chore....

Brett
N2DTS


> -----Original Message-----
> From: amradio-admin at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:amradio-admin at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Jim Isbell
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 9:45 AM
> To: amradio at mailman.qth.net; cra at floodcity.net
> Subject: Re: [AMRadio] River Radio and getting fired up.
> 
> 
> Not sure what you are asking, but maybe you missed the Ad by 
> River Radio 
> where they advertised that, in the event of the death of a Ham, they 
> would inventory the equipment and do an appraisal on it so that the 
> widow would not get ripped off by the "vultures."  One guy 
> posted that 
> he thought River Radio was a "vulture" and going to rip off 
> the widow. 
>  I posted in reply that while I thought the ad might be tasteless and 
> not appropriate on the list, it was certainly a service that 
> some might 
> want, even ahead of their death.  I stated that I felt they were more 
> likely to have the "vultures" of the local ham community do 
> in the widow 
> than a legitimate business.
> 
> As to the second part of the message, I posted the URL of an 
> ad on E-Bay 
> where a guy is selling copies of manuals (in this case the 
> B&K 747 tube 
> tester) that he apparently downloads from the BAMA site where 
> they are 
> available for FREE to anyone who wants them.  I find this 
> objectionable 
> because the people who post manuals there and the operators 
> of that site 
> do it as a FREE public service to Hams and others.  The first page of 
> the manuals explains the free service and I will just about bet that 
> this guy removes that page so as to keep the buyer innocent.
>