[Milsurplus] Re: [ARC5] Ya gatta see this!

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On 9/8/06, J. Forster <jfor at quik.com> wrote:
> Looks like a pile of trash to me. The bones of all too many old radios.

Nah, there's plenty of good stuff in there to be used, traded, sold,
or whatever. Builders would love to get those caps, Variacs, roller
inductors. Very few people (if any) have a garage full of complete,
mint condition collectibles to give away. The issue is time. Time, as
in the time to go get it, load it, haul it, unload it, sort and
catalog it, then dispose of it. Even assigning a low figure to your
time, it still adds up to an enormous amount. Then figure in the
actual expenses involved in going to B.C. and back to wherever. Not
cheap, unless you live next door.

I undertook my first haul like this in my early 20s, when I had little
to do and little already accumulated. The stuff was the result of many
decades of accumulation by a fmr broadcast engineer, radio salesman,
and ham. Somewhere in the 1982-84 timeframe. Filled a medium sized
Ryder truck. Finally got through the last box a couple years back,
full of old documentation. Got many wonderful surprises along the way,
like an early 20s Westinghouse Aeriola Sr. under a stack of old QST
mags in a cardboard barrel, many old military TMs, and a box full of
RCA 74B ribbon mics. But if I sold every item from the lot, including
the AK-10 breadboard that originally got my interest, I'd still be
several thousand dollars in the hole for the time and effort spent.

Last year I drove to NC to rescue a 2500 lb. Raytheon BC transmitter
from an AM station about to be plowed under. 3 days spent driving over
3K miles, the cost of meals, rooms, and gas @ $3/gal (it was just
after the hurricane, talk about good timing) alone was around $2K.
That doesn't include the time of 3 people working to disassemble and
load it. Gorgeous transmitter, always wanted one since seeing my first
one. Now that I'm moving I'll likely end up selling it, and even
though it came with almost 2 dozen 833A tubes, numerous 845s (mostly
pulls) Peter Dahl iron and other spares, I'll be VERY lucky if I can
get even $1500. But it was an experience I'll never forget, and we
saved a beautiful piece of history from the bulldozer.

The older I get, the more difficult it is to put a value on my time.
Anyone undertaking such an endeavor needs to be doing it for the love
and enjoyment of radio, because any realistic monetary payback just
isn't there. It's more like a labor-intensive hobby. Just ask Will
Donzelli, Robert Downs, and some of the other guys who sell this stuff
how "rich" it's making them. In character, maybe....

~ Todd  KA1KAQ