[Collins] The KWM-2 in the Dumpster Story Again.

[kiyoinc at attglobal.net]

I heard the shocking story again.   This is from a guy who did radio 
repair in the military. He said that in 1990, they were shutting down 
the repair schools and had pallets and pallets of Collins KWM-2's.  They
tried to give them to the army, called around, and no one wanted them,
so they threw them in the dumpster.

I said, do you know what a KWM-2 is worth?  A thousand dollars, maybe
more depending on condition.

They had pallets of them.   Incredible.  I knew that happened at the end
of Vietnam but I didn't think that still happened.

This is not a friend-of-a-friend, urban legend.  I know this guy and 
believe him.  He named the school location as well as the people 
involved.  I'm not repeating that.

The good part of the story is that one of the guys, a ham, protested the 
disposal so they stacked up the KWM-2's neatly and he believes that 
night, some ham did a little dumpster diving.

Did someone turn up at Dayton, about 1991 or 1992 with a truckload of 
KWM-2s?

I think these things run in cycles.  The last month, an outfit on eBay 
has been trying to sell Watkins-Johnson synthesized receivers for $800, 
then $750, then $725.  Their address is in Maryland which is where NSA 
is.  I'm guessing that NSA is phasing out these 1970's and 1980's 
Watkins-Johnson receivers, again by the pallet load. If this is NSA, if 
so, if there are hundreds or maybe thousands of these things, then what 
are they worth?  Certainly not $700.

I also saw a flood of 2000 series Tektronix scopes a couple years ago.


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