RadioBanter - View Single Post

November 24th 05, 05:08 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors

wrote:

Oh, I LOVED the Galaxy V mark II.

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.

Since I dove into this water...I'll continue my nay-saying even tho I
love BAs.

You say FT-101, etc...aren't $100 pieces of gear on ebay. Thats too
broad and maybe your perspective is different than mine. As found
Galaxy V are lucky to get $100, as are HW-100. FT-101, Kwood TS-520,
Swan 350-500, Drake TR-3/4 will garner twice that in "last time I fired
it up it worked" condition. I've given away two Galaxy V in as found
condition this year because they couldn't be sold at any price.

I'm not clear if you are suggesting building these things from scratch
or taking older xcvrs and refurbing them. If you haven't walked this
talk I suspect you'd find out very quickly that paying $35 for an old
Galaxy and refurbing it at maybe a cost of a dozen hours of labour you
might get $125 on resale on a good day when there are no other buyers
that could do the same thing for their own purpose.

To do an equivalent Galaxy 5 from scratch for $199 commercial resale?
No way.

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.

Well, you have my input. I'll never discourage rolling your own but
trying to make a bizness out of it is a whole nuther can of worms.

-Bill WX4A