I agree that the seller is free to price at whatever s/he wants, it is
still a free country ;-) However, this seller admits that he didn't check
on what the current selling price range of his used item might be. This
presumably explains why none of the thousands of buyers looking in these
newsgroups responded to his online free ad? I just bought a dual band HT
on this newsgroup, so that's my excuse ;-)

If he had, then there would be no possibility of "cheap *******" hams
buying cheaply from him and reselling on ebay. Ebay makes it a ten second
operation to find the recent final auction prices and links (for
condition, accessories etc.) on most major ham items being sold, right? I
haven't ever sold anything on Ebay, so I guess I don't qualify for this
accolade? ;-)

I have bought a lot of stuff on ebay, and most of it was NOT as described.

I also just returned an hour ago from a local electronics sale (see
http://www.thirdsaturday.com/) with a 400 watt/hr 12v emergency battery I
wanted to donate to our campus radio club for next year's field day,
described as just pulled from service, fully charged etc. Turns out to
have less than a volt of residual charge, high sulfide buildup, and other
problems etc. The "6 pin mini-DIN adapter cable" in a sealed bag doesn't
fit the 6 pin mini-DIN on our club's FT1500M ;-). So I will have to buy
another one that actually does, and donate it to put our club on 2m packet
radio, another delay and dollars wasted ;-(

And I'm fixing to try a work-around this weekend for an FT736R radio that
was purchased by past club officers but which was modified (undocumented
by seller) and is now cheaper to replace than to pay the labor ($75/hr)
and board replacements (3) and S/H ($150 r/t) needed to fix this kilobuck
radio bought on Ebay for our radio club. That's the buyers side of the
risk equation, yes? ;-)

So yes, it is hard being a seller and seeing prices less than you had
hoped. But I think it is even harder to buy stuff, without knowing if the
real reason the item is being sold is it is bad, or has problems too
expensive to fix, or somebody has modified it and repairs will cost more
than the radio is worth. In such transactions, the seller is usually the
one with full knowledge of the item's condition and history, not the
buyer, right?

So that's why I think you will find that prices are less than you might
hope. Too many of us have had bad experiences on Ebay and online and at
hamfests, getting items that turned out to be just junk, or requiring
major repairs, and otherwise on the short end of the deal.

regards,

bobm
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************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
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