[Premium-Rx] RE: EUROPEAN LIST MEMBERS

[Barry Hauser]

Hello Andree

(sorry, I don't know how to put the ' over the second "e", or how to key an
umlaut for that matter ;-)

Your English is fine.  In fact, I assumed you were from the UK due to the UK
spelling of a few words, until I saw the closing.

Anyway, I largely agree.  I just wanted to point out a couple of additional
things.

I assumed most list members would be aware of this, but I'll mention it
anyway:  One of the best reference sources for shortwave receiver
information is Fred Osterman's book, "Shortwave Receivers Past and Present".
While it includes many non-premium rx's it also covers many high end
receivers including many non-US made, including European-built such as
Siemens, Hagenuk, Marconi, etc.  As I recall (the book is not handy at the
moment), it includes examples from the manufacturers you listed.  This book
is available internationally for about $25-30, and I saw one listing from a
German supplier for 34 euros.  I suspect it is cheaper from Internet
booksellers based in Europe.

As for US buyers of European equipment -- I've done it once or twice.  One
was a small but rather heavy R-209 MKII (by no means premium technology).
Another was an interesting Blaupunct portable from Munich.  I found shipping
from Australia (down under) to be much less that one would expect from the
sheer distance.

More often, the equipment I want is on the opposite coast and it isn't
infrequent that the shipping cost begins to approach that of the equipment.
So, you might be surprised at what some will pay if they want something and
there is no closer source.  I suspect shipping a 20 kg receiver from Europe
to the US would cost somewhat more than 30% of $350, particularly if the
final destination were in the West somewhere.  Even so, it wouldn't stop an
interested buyer.

Another cost element to consider is the import duty and the paperwork can be
a bit tricky if the receiver has a military designation.  It is not a good
idea to "under-declare" the value as that should agree with the insured
amount.  However, if a buyer is truly interested and wants the receiver to
keep and use, rather than for short term resale, he or she will buy and pay
the freight. (No, not everyone, but some.)  Even if the buyer decides to
sell, if the original base price were reasonable and there were no important
flaws in the unit, there is a good chance to recover the full cost on a
domestic re-sale as the shipping would be cheaper and less of a
consideration for the next buyer.

In evidence -- there is quite a bit of international traffic on that well
known internet auction site.  A great deal of this type of equipment travels
from North America or Europe to Japan.

Another factor to consider is recourse in the event of a severe problem,
such as misrepresentation of the goods.  It is much more difficult to
resolve these situations when an international sale is involved. There are
ways of minimizing this risk.

Another way European built equpment gets here is by means of a large scale
purchase by a reseller.  I know of one situation whereby a West Coast
entrepreneur purchased one or more estates in Germany and had it all shipped
in via containerized ocean freight.  This included a number of nice Siemens
units.

Barry
P.S.  Sorry if I've made any mistakes with my English -- it IS my mother
tongue and I have no excuses. ;-)

Guten Tag .. oder Abend ..


----- Original Message -----
From: <AKnott at WTD71.de>
To: <christine2001_579 at t-online.de>
Cc: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 5:30 AM
Subject: [Premium-Rx] RE: EUROPEAN LIST MEMBERS - and the Premium Radio
Thread- Premium-Rx Digest, Vol 5, Issue 31


Dear Christine,

you are right. It will not help to ignore a part of the world (and its
receivers[you can see me smile here]).

Generally out of ANY bigger group of people you will ALWAYS find some who
have good or even very good ideas (how to build receivers). And one can
recognize that there are ways of technical solutions that the industry (out
of financial or whatever reasons) never will go but private amateurs use
this ways.

A definition for a premium receiver has been made some submissions before
but as an european list member I want to define this definition broader and
a little bit more in detail:

A premium receiver is a high performing receiver, ...

And now three details:

1. ... which means relative to the actual state of the art (of course with
some kind of tolerance) at the time of development or at least at the moment
when the receiver was first given to the first user (usually a customer, but
not in all cases). If special receivers came to (civil or private) users
very late because they have been kept secret, one has to keep the date of
development in mind if one makes the decision whether the receiver is a high
performing receiver.

2. ... regardless whether it has been developed or completely manufactured
by an organisation (govermental, ham club), a company or a private person.
It is not really necessary that the receiver has been sold to a public/civil
or other professional (e.g. governmental, military, naval) customer. The
receiver may be even homemade but shall be existant in reality and no
fiction. At least ONE example has to be there so that there is the
(theoretical) possibility to make some tests to compare its performance with
other receivers.

3. ... regardless of the country where the receiver has been developed or of
the political system or governmental regime.

One should keep an eye for certain receivers which are not really high
performing but have at least one very special specification which other
"really" high performing receivers do not have. With an addition of several
such partial technologies there may be even better receivers in future. This
should include transceivers as well because they simply have receiving
function.

Of course every member is free to decide for his personal priority which
receiver is most interesting for her/him. Somehow it is up to the european
members to "mix this list up" with questions and discussions about non-US
high performing receivers we (europeans) of course all know more or less.

Christine, let me play the role of the devils attorney now with a VERY
critical question: Perhaps this list is NOT as important to the european
members as one might think? There are really interesting receivers which
have been made in europe (in the former eastern block or scandinavia, just
to name some). If I really look for some information about US receivers I
will ask here using this list but If I want some information about european
receivers, I will ask in the national or even local boards on my side of the
big lake.

What I feel is that this list is kept less interesting for all members by
"keeping the bandwidth" narrow. Most european or foreign receivers seem to
be "out of band" models here, especially for majority of members, other
members semm to be not really active (let us estimate why). On the other
hand shipping a professional receiver from Europe to the US is relatively
expecive and this financial barrier keeps many european receivers less
attractive. Who will buy my 14kHz-30MHz fully snthezised professional
receiver with mechanical filters and a weight of 20kg for 350 bucks if one
has to add 30% for shipping? So it may take a lot of time before european
receivers spread all over the US as well due to this reason.

A way how to prevent a "small bandwidth" may be to broaden the definition of
"premium receiver" as I did in my example above.

What receivers to take into your list? Just some examples: EKD-100 series,
EKD-300 series and EKD-500 series manufactured by RFT in the former
GDR(german Democratic Republic). Professional receivers from Hagenuk
(RX-1001 series), Debeg, Skanti and so on.

With greetings from Germany

Andreé Knott
DD3LY

P.S.: Please forgive the mistakes I made, english is not my mother tongue.
And I am always happy if I receive some help from this list or any ham or
hobbyist...