[R-390] Pricing Question

[bw]

Cecil,

I do the same thing- look over trash piles on the street, etc, wishing for
the same things. One reason is that I was talking to one of the known bs-ers
at work one day and he mentioned radio frequencies for a job. I mentioned
something, and he asked if I knew about radios. He said that was too bad
because he had just put a big, heavy, gray Hammarlund on the street the week
before. Then, he asked if I was alright because I looked suddenly very sick.
Honest, that's what he said to my reaction. To think I was that close!

I've had a lot of radio gear given to me. I've gotten a like new
Transoceanic that is sand state. I got a real fixer upper tube model for
around $40. I haven't gotten any boat anchors yet, but I've been given
several thousand tubes NIB. I've collected several tube amplifiers, most for
free. I did pay a little for a very nice Bogen 120 amp that I recapped and
it works fine. I run free wanted ads in a local rag that has all of the ads
in it and sells at the gas-quick shops around here. You would be surprised
at the things people have and are willing to either give away, or let go for
a small price. People have stuff lying around. You just have to reach them
somehow. I'll begin the ads again after the first of the year, and I think
I'll begin some serious collecting around here.

My PH-56 Motorola was my first boat anchor. I paid $300 for that from the
same guy who later snagged my EAC at Dayton. He gave me a SP-600 Bud cabinet
with it and apologized for it being the wrong cabinet. I was bitten by the
bug from a Kenwood R-2000 that I had bought over Fidonet from a guy in
California for $280. I sold that over Fidonet to get the Motorola as I had
heard of the virtues of the R-390A.


Barry


> Well that brings me to my story which I have never told here, of how I got
> my first R-390A.  I had been looking for one for quite a while...I didn't at
> that point have any boatanchor radio's...I was active on the ham bands
> chasing DX on a Yaesu FT-1000D.  (long since gone..sold it and bought my
> wife a computerized sewing machine...ain't love grand.)
> 
> Anyway I had been talking to a local guy, I have spoken of before, about
> buying one from him since he had a pile of them.  We could never get
> together...mostly because he would never commit.  I decided to call an
> elderly Amateur Radio friend who is now SK...his call was KB5QBU.  I called
> and asked Fred if he had or knew anyone that had an R-390 for sale.  His
> response was...."Funny you should call...I just went and retrieved one from
> a fellows home that I had lent to him a few months back...he died in a plane
> crash and it's in the trunk of my car and I was dreading having to get it
> out.  If you will come get it out it's yours."  Of course it didn't take me
> but a few minutes to get over there and get it out for him.  Turns out he
> was a member of MARS and had signed the thing out many years earlier.  He
> did some paperwork to have it retired or decommissioned or whatever it is
> one does to get it off the books.  It's a very clean Motorola..with all
> Motorola modules.  Original meters and all covers.  He gave me a binder with
> some manuals in it and they turned out to be for the R-391 which I traded to
> our list admin for a correct original R-390A manual many years ago.
> 
> My only regret looking back now is that the same day Fred offered a very
> nice looking old National receiver...a VLF as I remember it...probably an
> RBL or some such and I didn't take it. (I had what I had come for...couldn't
> imagine me needing another old tube radio..HA)  He was cleaning
> out...worried about what his wife was going to do with all the stuff if he
> passed on.  I'm sure it went in the trash....
> 
> Turns out as I later found out...his wife died a few years later and he
> moved out west to live with his son where he died just a few years ago.
> 
> One things for sure....I was bit hard by a bug that day...I didn't see the
> symptoms until much later.  I have the incurable disease now.   Probably no
> less than 20 boatanchors reside in the shop now....along with an Icom 756
> Pro II just to keep things balanced!
> 
> Where does it end?  I find myself driving down the road looking at trash
> piles in front of homes folks have moved out of or cleaned out, hoping to
> spot a discarded boatanchor....haven't yet but I can only imagine how many
> have gone to the landfill undetected.....
> 
> Cecil...