XPost: rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Bill Gunshannon   wrote:   
   >   
   >Well, I pretty much gave up on the "surplus" era decades ago   
   >when I watched surplus Army teletype vans come into the local   
   >surplus dealer only to be told they were not available.  He   
   >later went out of business.  Hard to run that kind of a   
   >business from a Federal Pen.  Seems the government surplus   
   >people in the states had learned they could get a lot more   
   >money shipping them to South America and selling them to   
   >drug cartels.  I still often wonder how many AN/GRC-26/D   
   >vans are sitting scattered around the South American   
   >jungles now that they do business over sat phones.  :-)   
      
   That's the thing about surplus.  It's WAY more profitable to sell something   
   to someone who is going to use it for the original purpose than to break it   
   down for something else.  If you part it out, people with the original items   
   needing repair parts will pay WAY more than people just wanting random parts   
   for projects.   
      
   So if you have a military buyer, you're going to make a lot more money than   
   you will selling to hams.  The problem is that the paperwork is a whole lot   
   worse and the paperwork is kind of crazy.  I know I had to sign a form saying   
   that I would not export my AN/USM-141 oscilloscope to a foreign country.   
      
   Today's drug cartel is tomorrow's legitimate government and vice-versa...   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)