Oh, I LOVED the Galaxy V mark II. It was the rig I grew up on! When
my folks got divorced when I was in college they stored it in a garage
and it got rusted out completely. My second best choice is the Yaesu
FT-101E or EE, I had the E rig in my first marriage but I lost it in
the divorce and bankruptcy. I just got a Yaesu FT-101EE to reactivate
the communications part of the hobby. I am a builder, primarly, and
have been for decades.

I beg to differ regarding tube gear being tempermental. Badly designed
tube gear is certainly inferior to established solid state gear. But
well designed tube gear (Collins class and some military) is better
than most solid state gear. Success depends on a lot of factoris:
electronic design, mechanical engineering, manufacturing methods and
techniques, parts sources, pricing, and profit margin.

The FT-101, Galaxy, Drake, and Swan are not $100 pieces of gear on
EBay, they are more like $300 to $400 pretty consistencly. I think a
fully loaded multiband fresh boatanchor should sell quite nicely for
$199.95 it if offers compareable features. That would imply a
wholesale price of about $100.00. That would imply that parts, labor,
and other indirect costs should be somewhere between $50 to $80. I
think I can get from Russia or China a single sweep tube plus a handful
of smaller tubes for about $30. The rest would have to be chassis,
discretes, power, labor, shipping, and customs.

Now, if I market direct through the net rather than through a retailer,
I think I could go self sustaining after a few build-sales cycles.

If the people on this topic would be willing to be a focus group for
the fresh boat-anchor of thier dreams, I would be quite grateful.

The Eternal Squire