RadioBanter - View Single Post - What's the most enjoyable receiver you've ever owned?

March 10th 05, 08:20 PM

(Michael Black) wrote:

As time progresses, such large wars are a thing of the past. Yes,
there has been near constant war somewhere, but it is generally handled
by the usual level of equipment. There are no spikes, where suddenly
massive amounts of equipment need to be bought, and then nobody wants
it afterwards.

So there is much less surplus than there was as a result of WWII ending.

Actually, I think there's more to it. Take Fair Radio Sales as an
example. I spent an afternoon just wandering around their floor, back
room and warehouses.

From talking to them it sounds like they buy stuff in HUGE lots. The
surplus market is dominated by companies that do that now, despite
laws trying to make it easier for people -- individuals -- to bid on
surplus.

But anyway, once they get that surplus, 1) it's often in terrible
shape and may take 3 or 4 radios to produce one marginally workinig
one, and 2) there's often classified stuff in there (whether it NEEDS
to be classified is irrelevent) that must be destroyed. And they do.
You hear about wonderous radios -- just great radios, no crypto or
anything like that -- that end up being run over with bulldozers,
because they're classified.

Bureaucracy in action...

--
Eric F. Richards

"Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass,
often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940