[MRCA] W2OBR

[jeepp]

Amen......Jeep K3HVG


Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone

-------- Original message --------
From: Ray Fantini <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu> 
Date: 2/20/17  17:03  (GMT-05:00) 
To: mrca at mailman.qth.net 
Subject: [MRCA] W2OBR 



At times I write just to express ideas, feeling and thoughts. This is one of those times.
Some people collect because they appreciate the design and utilitarian approach of the technology, others because it recalls a time when they had a connection to those items.
I collect because of Ham radio and a relationship to cheap, plentiful equipment that was available at one time and the effect that had on my life.
From the end of the Second World War up to the early seventies there was an almost endless supply of cheap available surplus radio equipment. Many SWL, Ham radio operators, and aspiring Ham radio operators found modifying and operating
 this equipment provided a successful path to that end. I started with destruction of various radios until my first real working receiver, a BC-348Q and with a manual, soldering iron and well stocked junk box I learned a great deal working with and modifying
 that radio. In those years I had worked on and modified many radios with the idea at the time it was better to have a working example then a pristine example, but that was in the seventies when it appeared that the supply would never end. Well it did.
The vast numbers that once were available are likely to never be seen again. The result of this is that we find our collections moving more into the realm of buying and selling equipment from private owners as opposed to buying directly
 from the government and surplus dealers. I was selling BC-348 receivers at the Frost Fest in Richmond and had a stack of receivers and was surprised by how many Hams knew what they were and commented on how they once owned one. But the thing was that a number
 of the people looking to buy the receivers now want them as examples of pristine, clean unmodified radios. Nothing like the old days when people bought the radios with the idea that they would be using and modifying them. My comment to them would be “These
 radios are seventy five years old and in all that time have been owned by multipole people and it’s only natural that back in the past they would be modified and changed around to one degree or another” and being that I was selling them as parts or project
 radios they were priced accordingly, by the way I did sell all of them. I think my point in relating this story is that in today’s world there are no stocks of unmodified and all original radios that are going to be turned up by the government so if you’re
 a collector you can consider yourself buying form another collector or an estate. And perhaps that’s the real subject of my ramblings, this past week I got the news about Richie, W2OBR and we all have to face the fact that a lot of the equipment we see on
 EBay or at the Fest will be coming from estates. Fortunately Richie had plans in place for his collection, and those items are being taken care of. But it’s one of the things we all have to consider is what we want done with this stuff when we are no longer
 able to take care of it.  Today we live in a world where just twenty years ago we would never had the options that are available to us now, you can thin out your collection on sites like EBay or other online buying and selling sites. You can drag stuff to
 the Fest and sell in person or you can give it away to friends and associates but the key is to have a plan. If you don’t have a plan then others will provide one. Often this will involve people who may have little or no understanding of those objects. 

Richie had a plan and now his equipment will be going to the people who he chose in advance. The family has a mechanism for liquidating the estate and the equipment itself will live on. I am going to try to borrow Richie’s M151 and display
 it up at the MRCA Display in Aberdeen this spring.
Can think of no more fitting tribute then to have people enjoying seeing it after he is gone.
 
 
Ray Fantini KA3EKH
 
 

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