Dirty sloppy shacks and operating desks mean one thing to me. Slob. Like those who bring radios to flea markets and the rig is covered in dust etc. That shows me that the owner doesn't not take care of his equipment properly.
Clean it up.
Right now I'm remembering the huge pile of KWM2's, dented, dirty, some with broken meter faces, that we used to pick from when I served in the USAF.
Nasty looking, they were well taken care of where it counted, and turned in "yeoman's duty" 24-7-365.
And think about this - by now most of them are in somebody's ham shack, refurbished, and still turning in that kind of performance.
But that's cool, the old bromide about one man's meat and another man's poison applies. You buy the great looking ones, I'll save money on the ugly ones. Kinda like the way I treated choice of girlfriends back when I was younger. She wasn't the best looker on the campus, but then again she was faithful and low maintenance...
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