[Boatanchors] Re: Boatanchors Digest, Vol 20, Issue 13; Excess stuuf

[Jim Wilhite]

No Jack you didn't touch a button much except among those of us 
who do restore old stuff.

At the recent OKC hamfest I bought a Sprague Tel-Omike TO 4 that 
did not work.  Same thing with a Triplett model 801 VOM.  They 
were pretty but need serious component repair.  I have managed to 
get them going again with some ordered parts and what I have on 
hand.

What you see on this list is most, if not all the readers do 
restoration or repairs.  Sooo...well you get the drift.  Probably 
if you had posted that same message on QRZ there would not have 
been a comment.

Of all the hams I know, only about 10-20% actually are serious 
about this kind of work and most of them work for a living.  As a 
result their time is short which causes problems with pickup, 
categorizing and disposing of parts.

Among the young are very few that will do this kind of work, or 
even among a bunch of dedicated boatanchor enthusiasts like us. 
But if someone wants to pick the stuff up and do it, please make 
the stuff available to them.  If you choose not to, that is quite 
OK with us, but we sure will cry.  I wish I lived closer so I 
could help.

73  Jim
W5JO

Jack Taylor wrote:
> Apparently I touched a button, sorry about that!
> 
> Indeed I have donated several pickup loads of gear to the local radio club
> which was used in their auctions.  The radio club does collect donated items
> for resale or disposal but quite a bit of it ends up going to the landfill
> due to
> little interest in boatanchor parts and items.  I had advised that I was
> getting ready
> to dispose of more "stuff" but drew no interest so out it went.  I am of
> course
> reserving a few items with which to pay for flowers when I go SK.
> 
> As I see it, most of the old timers have passed on and there's very little
> interest in
> the old gear except for readying it for resale to a declining number of
> collectors.
> 
> My observation is that the young people (such as in scouting programs)
> aren't interested
> in "old junk", they even turn their noses up at 5 year old computers.  I
> once donated a
> operational computer system with loads of software to a couple of teens
> figuring they
> might take advantage of it as a learning tool.  It was promptly disposed of
> since it
> didn't do gaming.  For this I blame myself for not thinking to include game
> software.
> 
> How many young kids do you hear on your local repeaters?  It's been several
> years
> since I heard the last kid around here.  For that matter, there's not much
> activity of any
> kind except for the weekly net where a few check in with "No traffic".
> 
> 73 de Jack
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "w5grg" <w5grg at comforttexas.net>
> To: <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2005 10:55 AM
> Subject: [Boatanchors] Re: Boatanchors Digest, Vol 20, Issue 13; Excess
> stuuf
> 
> 
> 
>>Why not donate the stuff to the local radio club to auction off to raise
>>funds , or give it to the Boy/Girl Scouts?
>>Thanks, George W5GRG
>>PS; Don't forget , the boy who dies with the most toys wins.
> 
> 
> 
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