[Boatanchors] Re: Stuff

[Roger Basford]

Jack,

I think the best suggestion that's been made in reply to your post is to get 
someone to sell it on eBay and split the proceeds. Now, I won't claim that I 
provide a public service to ham radio by selling stuff on there myself, but 
a lot of what I do sell finds good homes all over the world.

I've been asked on four occasions in the past year or so to see if there's 
anything of any value left in a silent key sale after the modern gear has 
been sold. In all cases, the hams from local clubs tasked with disposing of 
the "junk" had no idea of what they had, so I'm not surprised that folks at 
your local club didn't show much enthusiasm about your offer of more 
equipment. Although most of those hams I mention were in their middle age or 
older, most haven't held a licence for more then ten years and have no real 
knowledge of the history of the hobby, hence they can't expected to 
appreciate the value (monetary and historical) of some obscure part that to 
us boatanchorists is gold dust. It's not just the pieces of equipment and 
parts - it's also the information that older hams have stashed away that 
often makes their "junk" worth having. Just a few pages of a manual or a 
copied article from an old magazine will save someone years of searching.

Anyway, mustn't ramble! Find a eBay partner and get him to sell it all for 
you - it's transparent, you can see what  money he's getting and who's 
getting the equipment. That way, at least what eventually goes to the 
landfill will have been properly sorted and anything of worth recycled.

All the best,

Roger G3VKM

(Norfolk, England)

Message: 9
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 10:35:43 -0600
From: "Jack Taylor" <jack at n7oo.com>
Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] Re: Boatanchors Digest, Vol 20, Issue 13;
Excess stuuf
To: <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <00a101c5b6ee$de3abbf0$0200a8c0 at acme>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

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





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