[ICOM] Worth of radios..

Sun Sep 13 06:56:48 EDT 2009

Talking about price. I always thought as long as radio is not 30 years old
the price should figure out to be 2/3 the original price.

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 12:50 PM, AD5PE <ad5pe at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Good summary, John.
>
> My experience tracks with yours, with a couple of exceptions.
>
> Along the lines of "no direct replacement" radios (FT-847 example) there
> are
> some "collectibles" radios that fall into the same category - certain
> Collins, Hallicrafters, etc.  Kind of like old classic cars - they never
> truly "bottom out" like the run of the mill ones.
>
> A second point is radios that are old enough to not have all the "features"
> we've come to expect.  I had an old Ten-Tec Omni D - it's pre-WARC, so no
> 12
> or 17 meters.  Prices on that one are truly closer to 10-15% rather than
> 1/3.  I think that's because while it's a fine radio with a healthy new
> price, there were many slightly newer (but much cheaper) radios that have
> those "new" (at the time it was made) bands.  Why buy a 30 year old Omni
> with no WARC when you can buy a 20 year old Yaesu, Kenwood or Icom for the
> same price.  Sure, most of those radios (except the top of the line models)
> don't have the "ears" of the Ten-Tec, but they have the new bands and are
> easier to maintain (to a point).  When you're talking sub-$500 HF rigs,
> you're not talking about people looking for top performance.  You're
> talking
> bargain hunters and new hams on tight budgets.  When you can get used Yaesu
> 840 and Icom 718's for $400, who's going to pay more than about $300 (15%)
> for an Omni D unless it's in mint condition with all the options.  Of
> course, multiple filters and the matching power supply and remote VFO can
> run that up considerably.
>
> That's what happens to the HTs, too.  With the exception of band-scopes,
> DSP
> and maybe remote control (on the really old rigs) - an HF rig is an HF rig.
> Many hams will swear that a 50 year old Collins S-line with good filters is
> better digging out the weak ones than all but the newest contester grade
> stuff - and they may be right.  On the other hand, your $400 HT from 20+
> years ago may be missing MANY key features that are virtually required to
> work the repeaters today.  I've seen a number of 2m only HTs, 440 only HTs,
> and 2m only mobiles from the 70s and 80s - most were dirty, scratched,
> missing knobs or had broken buttons, and they invariably didn't have tone
> boards.  Sure, you can home-brew or kit build an outboard tone board, but
> original replacements for some of those radios are like finding hen's
> teeth,
> and cost as much as the radio without one!  When you compare that to a NEW
> FT-60 (dual-band, tone send AND receive and under $200) or FT-7800 (same
> but
> mobile, and typically around $250 if you shop around) and you can see why
> no
> one wants to pay even $100 for a used one.  1/3 to even 1/2 of new
> "equivalent" is a pretty good starting point for V/UHF FM mobiles and HTs -
> the caveat being "equivalent" - if it's old enough to not support PL tones,
> then that goes WAY down.  The only ones that go "up" from that point are
> current models with dual-receive capability.
>
> 73,
> Jay
> AD5PE
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: icom-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:icom-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
> On
> Behalf Of John Geiger
> Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 14:06
> To: ICOM Reflector
> Subject: Re: [ICOM] Worth of radios..
>
> For HF radios the bottoming out seems to be around 33% or 1/3 of its
> original value.  For example,
>
> The 756PRO sold for $3000 originally, now going for $1000 or so The 756
> original sold for $2100, and $700 seems the going used price The 706
> original went for $1200, now around $400 or so.
>
> You also have to figure in the replacement factor, though.  The Yaesu FT847
> has held its value really well because there is only on other
> HF/VHF/UHF/SAT
> on the market right now (the TS2000) and many satellite ops don't like the
> TS2000 because of the birdie in the middle of the AO27/SP50 downlink.
>
> There is no direct replacement for the Icom 375A.  The closest you can get
> is a Yaesu FT736R with the 222mhz module and that is also a used radio.
>
> HT used prices have really bottomed out because you can get a new one so
> inexpensively.
>
> 73s John AA5JG
>
> --- On Fri, 9/11/09, Dick Flanagan <dick at k7vc.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Dick Flanagan <dick at k7vc.com>
> > Subject: Re: [ICOM] Worth of radios..
> > To: "ICOM Reflector" <icom at mailman.qth.net>
> > Date: Friday, September 11, 2009, 12:13 AM At 09:59 PM 9/10/2009, John
> > Geiger
> > wrote:
> >  >And the Icom 375A should be selling for $80 as they were closed out
> > for $799.
> >
> > The rarity of an item will always affect its price. When you consider
> > how many 375A's were sold you are lucky to find one even close to the
> > old retail price.  Supply and demand will always sway the price of any
> > item.  Just try to find a KWM-2A in working condition these days for
> > anything close to what it sold for new.
> >
> > While Kurt's 10% rule-of-thumb might be a bit on the low side, I doubt
> > it is far from the mark on routine radios that were sold in large
> > numbers.
> >
> > Dick
> > --
> > Dick Flanagan K7VC
> > dick at k7vc.com
> >
> >
> > ----
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>
>
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-- 
Paul, KD3JF
Glen Burnie, MD