[Milsurplus] Jim Tucker

[Jeff Kruth]

I knew Jim Tucker personally, having met him over 35 years ago at the Hamvention. He is a hell of a nice guy. I sold him test equipment when I was buying and selling mountains of stuff in the Balt-Wash area during the 80's & 90's. We also traded some stuff.
IIRC, Jim either is a ham or because he had so many on the staff, he worked with hams. Thats why he added the ham gear to his store, as he knew he could access test equipment in trades by swapping. No one ever got rich off selling ham gear, but if he could trade a transceiver worth $500 for a $3000 retail used spectrum analyzer that he had a customer standing by for, well, all the better. When there were Microwave Ham Conferences ("MUD") in Dallas area, he would open his doors and left the guys dig through the "back room" for goodies.
My personal mantra is "Nothing lasts forever". I like to say, vis-a-vis surplus "I was at the party when the booze ran out...."I knew a lot of the big-wigs in Surplus during that time, quite the characters.
I have watched some of the exchanges lately on military surplus just shaking my head. A lot of you dont get it. Government sales were NEVER about making money, they dont give a good crap. As was explained to me at the Fort Meade DRMO by the HMFWIC (where mountains of KWM-2's came out, among others) "We are in the business of disposal, getting rid of "surplus"".After the Oklahoma City Bombing in the mid '90's, the word cam down to SHRED. Another way to dispose with no worries about militias (yep, that was before Baofengs) getting the stuff and using it against the Gov't. I saw the list, orders to shred "any and all equipments with keywords oscillator, receiver, transmitter, transceiver, amplifier, etc etc.
I could write a book about what I learned, saw, and participated in during the 30 years that I purchased millions of dollars worth of stuff, but only a few of us OT's would care.
73Jeff KruthWA3ZKR
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