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Author Topic: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?  (Read 1102 times)

KD7RDZI2

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #30 on: December 17, 2022, 12:15:05 PM »

Indeed, even if not designed from scratch, I believe assembled kits which you can easily modify/improve like the uBitx and others have the big advantage you can easily repair and you don't worry to ship it to the manufacturer, because you can do the repair in a Sunday afternoon... This is a different strategy than buying a new rig after selling the 'old' rig a few weeks before the warranty expires.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2022, 12:17:19 PM by KD7RDZI2 »
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K6BRN

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #31 on: December 17, 2022, 09:14:51 PM »

One of the reasons that I have always built my own gear is that I can repair it, and I stock my own replacement parts. I understand that not everyone has the time or resources to build equipment, but the tech support issue is nice benefit of homebrew.

"Your homebrew equipment on your eHam profile looks great!"

"Very good job so hat's off to you."

I second those comments.  Wow!  Very impressive and clean work, Stan! 

Glad to see you have friends to help with antennas, too.  Breaks the stereotype that all hams are solitary, grumpy old men!

Brian - K6BRN



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K7JQ

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #32 on: December 18, 2022, 06:20:07 AM »


Breaks the stereotype that all hams are solitary, grumpy old men!

Brian - K6BRN

Hey, Brian…I resemble that ;D ;D ;D!
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K8AC

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #33 on: December 22, 2022, 07:51:45 AM »

I guess I have a different viewpoint on the subject.  I've been buying and selling amateur equipment since 1959 for personal use only - not trying to profit from resales.  In the early 60s, the only way to reach a wide audience when selling something was to advertise in the classifieds in QST or CQ magazine.  Otherwise, your potential buyers were local radio club members.  Technology was advancing rapidly at that time and everyone I knew wanted the latest and greatest gear and there was very little demand for out of date stuff. So, you would set a price at which you could be pretty sure of attracting a buyer and send off your add to a magazine.  Some months later, the ad would appear and if you set your price right you might get a letter or two from prospective buyers.  In our area, no one attempted to make a business out of profiting from used gear and most guys would sell to newcomers at low prices just to help them get started. 

About the same time, a publication known as the "Yellow Sheets" came along - published a couple of times a month, 5-6 double-sided pages printed on yellow paper.  Then we could run an ad that would be seen in just a couple of weeks by hundreds of subscribers across the USA.  Not as wide a distribution as the magazines, but the readers were active traders and so your ad reached a larger group of potential buyers.  Even with that, prices remained fairly stable.

Thirty years later, the Internet came along with multiple websites containing classified buy/sell ads and now you had a world-wide pool of potential buyers.  Without fail, somewhere in that pool of buyers was a guy who wanted what you were selling and was ready and able to pay any amount to get it.   
That was fueled by the emergence of eBay, where such buyers would compete against one another, driving prices insanely high.  Some of you may remember back maybe 20 years ago when Joe Walsh bought a Hallicrafters SX-88 on eBay for an amount north of $4,200!  The SX-88, while rare, was a mediocre receiver with horrible intermod performance and it didn't come close to a receiver like the Collins 75A-4.  But, Joe's bid set the price level of the SX-88 for the rest of time, and they still command absurd prices. 

When you get ready to sell a piece of gear today, the first thing you do is get on the Web and check to see what price everyone else is selling the same thing for.  That tends to stabilize the price of an item years past the point where it would have been reduced based on its performance vs. other gear.  And, lastly, there's the Collector problem.  When I was getting started, there were few if any collectors of amateur radio equipment.  Today, there are collectors of virtually EVERY brand of radio gear.  They will pay any amount to improve the "quality" of their collection, driving up the prices of the better quality gear.  My first experience with one of those fellows was the European who paid me $225 dollars for a set of unused IC-781 handles (!) still in their original wrapper.   I had paid $19.95 for them new.

To sum up, somewhere in the world there's a guy with a burning desire to own what you're selling and he is willing to pay anything you ask for it.  Today, that guy will likely see your ad on the Web, whereas many years ago you and he would never meet. 

73, K8AC
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K7JQ

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #34 on: December 22, 2022, 08:51:26 AM »

^^^^^^^ K8AC, excellent post!
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K4BDA

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #35 on: December 22, 2022, 04:23:31 PM »

I've decided to got with a new rig. Visiting the candy story tomorrow at Ham Radio Outlet.
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VE3WGO

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #36 on: December 22, 2022, 08:54:59 PM »

It seems that the older a piece of gear is, the less correlation there is between its performance and its price.

Design aesthetics has a huge role to play in the desirability of a piece of gear.  It is a measure of how pleasing that gear is to use.  Those old boatanchor tube receivers with their mediocre IMD performance often have marvelously smooth tuning and excellent audio capabilities.  Every possible receiver setting is a clear label on a front-panel knob.  Many of them actually look nice, pleasing to the eye.

It's the same with classic cars...  many of them from the 1960s would not stand a chance in anything other than straight-line performance, but they sounded absolutely great, have extreme gobs of torque, and look fantastic.  Not like the cars of today which sadly all look like used bars of soap.  And some of those restored hot rods sometimes sell for the price of 5 of today's best cars.

Not everybody likes the look of a boatanchor radio or a classic car, I get that.  But as time wears on, it is pretty clear that the design aesthetic of modern electronics and vehicles are no longer as important as low cost and small size to most buyers.  As a result, those of us who do enjoy the pleasing "human interface" aspect of older radios and vehicles will continue to keep prices of older gear high.

73, Ed
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AI5BC

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #37 on: December 23, 2022, 08:14:46 AM »

I have an old rig for sale. 

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K6OK

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #38 on: December 23, 2022, 05:08:24 PM »

I've decided to got with a new rig. Visiting the candy story tomorrow at Ham Radio Outlet.

Great choice!  For about the same amount of money as the used FT-1000MP, a brand new Yaesu FTDX-10 or FT-710 absolutely leaves the old rig in the dust.  According to the Sherwood Receiver Test Data, the new rigs have 35dB more dynamic range than the FT-1000MP.  Icom 7300, 26 dB.  These are huge differences that you will hear.  Today's low end rigs run circles around the vintage stuff.
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ZS5WC

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Re: Why are used/older rigs so expensive?
« Reply #39 on: December 26, 2022, 12:21:03 AM »

 :)Its all down to preference.
I prefer proper superhets with smooth rx audio , will still finish an contest with an inferior legacy radio, and be able to repair the radio if need be.
There are no real radio bit is the new sdrs.. couple of LPFS, or RX bandpass, that is it. The manufacturers are making good $$$ of the new rigs, all the expensive bits are left out!.
They do work very well, no doubt!.
Many IC-7300s are on the market because local AM broadcast swamps the front end.
Legacy radios handle that quite fine, also, Better close in IMD does not always equal better sensitivity,
To stop the SDR's ADC getting overloaded , front end gain is limited, and it is how the radio is normally tested,
On legacy radios they are tested without preamps, but their front end gain is high, so close in IMD will be poorer.
On the IC-756 series, the 'S' meter would only function nearly as per standard when preamp one is engaged. 
So its all much of an muchness.. You pay your $$$ and take your choice.
73 de William
ZS4L / ZS5WC
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