[Boatanchors] Vintage Radios--LOTS

Wed Sep 17 14:55:13 EDT 2014

>From 1970, until 1979 when Motorola went out of that "end" of the business, I owned the Motorola reconditioned equipment center for the south-central United States.  We reconditioned equipment sold in 10-states, all reconditioned equipment exported, and all reconditioned equipment bought by the Federal Government including the military.

All "foreign" equipment (equipment manufactured by any company except Motorola) was destroyed.  We did not recondition any tube-type mobiles ever and tube-type base stations were dropped by 1972.  Hybrid mobiles and base stations were reconditioned.

Not long after I obtained the contract to re-manufacture the equipment, Motorola started having a quarterly "ham sale" of equipment.  This was held on a Saturday at a location, that I owned, away from the reconditioned equipment center.  All sorts of equipment, from portables to mobiles to base stations were sold.  Every amateur who purchased equipment had to sign a document stating that the equipment would only be used in the Amateur Radio Service.

In the late 1960s, to promote amateur radio operator participation in the Community Radio Watch program, the Dallas Regional Motorola office gave 300-mobile units and 5-repeaters to the Dallas Amateur Radio Club for distribution to DARC members.  Unfortunately, a number of the mobile units got sold to commercial licensees which was contrary to the agreement between the DARC and Motorola.

The situation came to a head when someone, who had bought some of the DARC equipment to use in commercial service, tried to get a manual from Motorola for an FMTRU-41V.  Although, at the time, the FMTRU-41V was still legal for 47 CFR Part 90 commercial radio services, the unit had not been manufactured for about 15-years.  The owner, of the radio, after having no results from Motorola about the manual, finally wrote the CEO of Motorola about "his" problem.  Motorola corporate traced the serial number of the unit back to the 300-mobile units that had been given to the DARC.  The Dallas manager, who had authorized the DARC agreement, was demoted 2-levels.  Had he not been the son of a Motorola Vice-President, he would have been fired.

It took several years before any equipment, which had been "traded in", was allowed to be distributed to amateur radio operators.  The signing of a document, by the amateur radio operator, who had to present his actual license, stating that the equipment would never be resold into commercial service, resulted in the equipment again being made available to amateur radio operators.  It was also made "perfectly clear", by Motorola, that if any of the equipment, sold to amateur radio operators, got back into commercial service, that the sales would be immediately stopped and the person, who purchased the particular equipment, would be sued for "breach of contract".  Since the vast number of amateur radio operators definitely wanted the sales to continue, there was a lot of "peer pressure" to keep the units from being returned to commercial service.

In addition, Motorola had a list of every one known to resell equipment.  Even though that person might hold an amateur radio operator's license, those persons were not allowed to purchase anything.

At the time, there were several dealers when had been acquiring obsolete commercial equipment, such as Motorola, General Electric, RCA, Link, etc., and selling the equipment for a pretty good price.  Since the prices of equipment being sold directly to amateur radio operators, was considerably less than what the dealers were asking, those dealers were upset that equipment was being sold by Motorola directly to amateur radio operators.

>From January 1971 until August 1973, I was the first FM Editor of CQ Magazine.  During that time frame, one of the dealers tried very hard to get me to intervene and stop the sales to amateur radio operators.  Instead, he wanted to purchase the equipment for resale.  I refused!

I stopped writing the FM column because CQ basically stopped paying for the articles.  When I stopped writing the column, I was owned right at $1000 which I have never collected.  But, I did get some revenge.  When I ceased writing the column, several full page advertisers, and even more half page and quarter page, cancelled their advertisements with CQ.  CQ could have paid me with the proceeds from well less than 2-full page advertisers for a single month.  Instead of paying the $1000, CQ lost about $10,000 per month in advertising revenue!

Glen, K9STH 

Website:  http://k9sth.net

On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 1:09 PM, Mr Bill Mellema via Boatanchors <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

I worked at the Motorola Service Center in Baltimore most of the 70's. We destroyed many good two way radio's that were taken in  for trade-ins. That would have made nice rigs for repeater or simplex operations. We were required to list model and serial number on a company official document. You would lose your job if one of those radios turned up somewhere.

Bill N3WM 

On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:32 AM, "manualman at juno.com" <manualman at juno.com> wrote:

Back in the late 80's when I worked in the telecommunications industry, I
was part of an organization that managed inventory in many offices and
warehouses. One of my first exercises was junking about 37 million
dollars(at cost) worth of telecommunications equipment which included
receivers, transmitters, teletype equipment, tons of data sets, switching
equipment, and tons of ancillary equipment. All of stuff went to major
recycle/smelting centers. Each center had to provide "certificates of
destruction" with detailed lists for all the stuff that was destroyed. It
took many many 18-wheeler trucks to get this stuff to their final
destination. Some of the stuff was stuff (our favorite manufacturers) we
love and hug every day but that's life in the corporate world and you
don't shed any tears.

Pete, wa2cwa

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 06:42:17 -0700 Don Merz via Boatanchors
<boatanchors at mailman.qth.net> writes:
> I wasn't trying to make my impromptu survey into any sort of exact 
> statistical endeavor. Your guess is as good as mine <grin> -- so 
> have at it!
> 
> But my guess is that there are somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 
> communication radios of all types (home broadcast RX excluded), 
> entering the seller's market during the course of the average 
> 52-week period. 
> 
> To me, that is an amazing number. It is almost certainly 
> unsustainable, given the declining number of active collectors and 
> the 60+ average age of ham radio operators. So yes--I bet a lot of 
> them are being relisted--at lower prices.
> 
> Be interesting to know how much old gear is going straight to the 
> landfill or metal scrapper on a monthly basis. I bet that tonnage 
> number would surprise us all.
> 
> 73 de N3RHT
> 

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