[Milsurplus] About that $400 T-17, here's the story

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

I read part of this thread last week but just put most of the comments down 
to the hate eBay stuck in the 50's rice burner lover crowd, and assumed shill 
bidding or some other malfeasance on the part of the seller.  Good or better 
condition T-17's currently go for $40 to $75 in most markets.

But hearing "the rest of the story" revealed leads me to say this.  Every 
time the high bidder looked at the auction or at its line item listing in his My 
eBay, eBay showed him what his high bid was.  So he had to have known his 
mistake.  He should have canceled his bid as soon as he saw what he had done, or 
if he couldn't read and follow the instructions on how to do so, should have 
contacted the seller and asked him to do it.  One of the few valid reasons eBay 
accepts for a bidder canceling their bid is "Entered Wrong Amount", and eBay 
certainly would not have disagreed in this instance.  So that bidder is at 
fault.

The other bidder or bidders are at fault for running the bid up maliciously, 
which is obviously what he or they did.  Unfortunately, there is little that 
the seller can do to them, although I would have been inclined to register a 
complaint against them with eBay, just to have it on the record.  And then put a 
tracer on their bidding and reported any other instances.

If the seller was foolish enough to put anything about the previous episode 
into the ad when he relisted it, it's no wonder no one bid.  The original high 
bidder was obviously too embarassed to.  And the malicious bidders didn't bid 
because no one else did.  And if I had seen it, I would have avoided it 
knowing that some AH's had it targeted.

On the other subject that got interjected into the thread, the performance of 
T-17's, they performed very well thank you very much for the purpose and in 
the environment that they were designed to work in.  Which was a background 
noise level so high that you usually could not hear yourself talking.  That's the 
reason for the small holes in the front of the T-17 as well as the RS-38.  
They were not designed for high fidelity 20-20000 cps music broadcasting.  Which 
is illegal on any frequency any of us can legally transmit on anyway.  
Microphones primarily intended for shipboard or shore station use had more and 
larger holes (I have examples).  The TBY microphone, which is another version of 
the RS-38, has many more and larger holes so that you could whisper into it and 
still modulate the transmitter.

In a message dated 11/20/2006 9:50:32 PM Central Standard Time, 
kargo_cult at msn.com writes: 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tom Norris" <r390a at bellsouth.net>
> 
> >Last week or sometime someone posted info about an auction for a $400  
> >T-17 mic.  I had contacted the seller and asked about it. Here is the  
> >email reply I received, it's probably on the listing page as well....
> 
> Tom, thanks for the rest of the story. That is really funny!!!  -Hue Miller
> 

Robert & Susan Downs - Houston
<http://www.wa5cab.com> (Web Store)
MVPA 9480
<wa5cab at cs.com> (Primary email)
<wa5cab at houston.rr.com> (Backup email)
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