[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Well, if a new rig is $1500 to $3000, how is a $500 boatanchor something > "that only the very well off can afford." My HT-37 set me back $495 in 1961 > and my HQ-180C was $449 at the same time. THAT, my friend, was expensive! I > paid for it by loading freight cars over the summer for the princely sum of > 75 cents an hour! That's right!. I worked all week for a gross pay of $30 > and Edgar F. Johnson wanted $495 for a Valiant. Would you spend 18.5 weeks > pay for a transmitter and another 15 weeks pay for a receiver? I spend $200 > to take my wife out for dinner and the next day have nothing to show for it. > A $500 Ranger is cheap, my friend. I can play with it, smell it, touch it, > enjoy it and still sell it for what I paid for it.
Have to agree completely with what Steve says here. I don't think it's so much a case of $500 being too much for a Ranger as it is a case of so many of us remembering the days of cheap/free boatanchors. When I started hauling things home in the 70s, nobody wanted old gear anymore. Everyone wanted smaller, more modern technology. The Yaesu FT-101E is a cheap knock-off of the KWM-2 with more bells and whistles crammed into the same size box, and a power supply too! Didn't matter that the performance sucked in comparison, a lot of hams were impressed and bought them. They cost a lot less than a Collins rig, too. Was Yaesu losing money? Were they doing the amateur world a favour? Not likely. They simply used a marketing idea that appealed to a lot of users, and did quite well for themselves. The result was...a lot of cheap/free vintage gear that people wanted to rid themselves of. I have more than a few of the 'if you can carry it/haul it off, you can have it' models from the 70s-80s. It was nice, I got very used to it, but it's not as common now as then. In the last few years I've come to realize that 'waiting' or 'biding your time' could end up running into many years before something now falls into your lap - if it ever does. And, as much as I love those $50 R-390s and as much as the average price seems to be $200-$400, think what such a rig would cost you today! As others have pointed out, convert yesterday's prices into today's dollars and you're likely *still* getting a very good deal. True, there is no reason not to be resourceful and beat the bushes for this gear, you will find deals if you're willing to put in the time. For many of us, time is more precious than money, though. And, it doesn't hurt to be wise enough to know when something comes along for a 'reasonable' price (not a give-away, but fair and not likely to be seen again) and TAKE it! Recent hamfests have less and less gear showing up, yet I still see these idiots who'll walk over to a guy's table and try to convince him that his 75A-4 isn't worth more than $100 because it uses tubes. Is it any wonder more people are choosing to sell online? Granted, hamfest prices and prices in general aren't as high as epay prices(which represent the largest audience and the most someone is willing to pay, as a rule), but let's face it - the days of plentiful cheap gear are gone. Why was it cheap? Because it was undesirable. Is it undesirable now? Should it be priced cheaply just for you, or me, or 'because we owe it to ham radio'? A friend recently offered me a late 75A-4 with one filter, HQ-150 w/speaker, Alpha 77 w/spare tube and KWM-380 with 2 mics and service manual for $2500. He's a dealer-type who makes all the big 'fests back this way and has access to the internet. And the KWM-380 needs work as well. Did I pay too much? I don't think so. Should I have offered less? I wouldn't have wanted to - radios are easier to find than friends. The Collins KW-1 sold for $3850 in 1952, which no doubt has something to do with the low production numbers. That was a year's income for many, even more for many others! What did a Ranger sell for? I bet there's a direct correlation. What does $3850 translate to in today's dollars? We couldn't afford to pay for that kind of quality today, the desire for cheaper prices made quality obsolete many years ago. Some is indeed progress, the rest is just selfishness. So....in an era of $50k Collins KW-1s, $10k Collins 30Ks, $7k Johnson Desk KWs and kilobuck KWM-2As, 75A-4s, National HRO-500s and so on, just how overpriced is a clean, tastefully updated Ranger worth? There are days when I would have loved to have been around in the 50s for ham radio. Then I wake up and thank God I was born later, when I could afford them. I'd have been lucky to afford a Heathkit back then! 73 de Todd/'Boomer' KA1KAQ
