Mike,

I will ship some radios but the heavier they get the more reluctant I am to ship for a few reasons.

1. Finding a suitable box and packing it properly to survive the handling it will see. I take pride in over-packing my shipments to survive the trip and to date I've been lucky.
2. Even well packed radios get destroyed in shipment.
3. Getting them to the shipping depot - meaning lifting them in and out of my truck. Granted I'm a young 57 but not nearly as strong as I was 10 years ago. Humping my AR-88 down into the basement made that very clear........

I refuse to let UPS stores pack them. First the price is ridiculous and second the last two radios I bought on line were packed by UPS and BOTH were way underpacked for their weight and damaged upon receipt. Trying to deal with the UPS store is futile even though they packed it!

I've been trying to sell a very nice and operational Hallicrafters SX-101A, HT-32 and HT-33A setup but will not ship them. You are correct in the fact that I'm limiting my buying audience but I'd rather they sit here in the shack then have to deal with packing and shipping them then worrying they arrive in one piece. They are too nice to be damaged in shipping.

I'm comfortable up to about 60lbs. Anything heavier I try local pickup or I'll meet within a reasonable distance.

Pics of the last R-390A I had shipped to me - Packed by a UPS store.

I contacted the seller and showed him the pics maybe suggesting he rethink using that shipper. He graciously refunded part of my purchase price which I felt bad about since he shipped the radio in good faith expecting to receive a fair price in return only to get screw ed by the packer / shipper.

Tom
W3TA

Stuff weighing this much I am reluctant to ship also. I certainly would NEVER use a UPS store to pack anything. Have you seen who works there? Usually kids or other minimum wage employees who have no clue how to pack an item. Best bet is a wooden crate. UPS charges a little more for wood packaging over cardboard.

How much stuff got shipped by individuals back when tubes were current?

Of course, other than classified ads in magazines, there wasn't a real place for shifting equioment elsewhere. It stayed in tye same general area.

Shipping increases the potential market, but certainly makes it costly.

As for lugging it to the shipper, I can't imagine being so disliked by the whole world that "no one" who would help out, even if I had to buy'em lunch and spot them ten bucks to boot, bottom line is, by sundown IT'S GONE.

The buyer pays shipping, packaging, and the insurance, and if the ten bucks and lunch were too high a price, I should've asked for for the radio, or just consider it "stupid tax" for buying the thing in the first place.

I've had a couple instances where damage occurred, and in both cases the UPS store handled the logistics and claim. That's part of their responsibility as a franchisee. If I'd had any problems I certainly would have seen to it they lived up to their responsibility.

My R-388, shipped by UPS, arrived in a falling apart, water soaked box. I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the owner did NOT ship it in that condition if only because UPS would not have accepted it. I humped it back to the local UPS/Kinko office (perhaps I should have gone to the local UPS distribution point).

The lady said, "I can't help you. Contact the original shipper."
"I am. That's why I am here."
"No. The original shipper at the other end in Michigan."

I really did not want to send it back because I got, by eBay standards, a pretty good deal (a bit less than $300 before shipping). Took it home, photographed it, and unwrapped it. I found no signs of water or physical damage under the bubble wrap. Decided to keep it.

I'm with Mike. I look for something good cosmetically, pretty good mechanically, and relatively inexpensive. The rest, I can repair.

John

The only solution to ship these heavy radios is to wrap $30 of Walmart large bubble wrap (200 feet) around the radio for about 4" of insulation. I use two parallel wraps that extends beyond the sizes and a bubble wrap 'plug' on each side. Then, I use a double wall box with a single wall box inside. A single wall box on the outside is not strong enough. I place hard foam insulation in-between the two boxes to stiffen up the boxes. It costs about $40 in packing materials.

Frankly, I bought a 51J-4 vs the R-390A due to I can handle a 45lb (less cabinet) 51J-4. The R-390A at 85 lbs (less cabinet) is too heavy for me. The 51J-4 is close to the R-390A in performance. The 9.5, 6 and 3.1 kHz 51J-4 filters are a little more friendly vs the R-390A 16, 8 and 4 kHz mechanical filters for Ham AM.

I think they don't ship because they know what's involved. In my work I've seen what professional shipping looks like for heavy and/or fragile cargo destined for serious use (i.e. not consumers at homes). You don't ship anything over around 70 lbs such as a 32V or AR88, large transformers, water cooled tubes etc. in a cardboard box. Not even if you double box it. When it comes to heavy or delicate cargo cardboard boxes are for cheap skates, people who don't know how to ship or people who are lazy. You have to have a wood crate with handles. Tubes are suspended with springs. Iron is bolted to the crate. Rigs in cabinets should be immobilized. If I did a 100 lb. ham rig, I'd probably do a double box but I'd remove all of the iron and ship that separately. No matter how you slice it, it's a lot of work to do it right. That's why guys want a local pick up. I once shipped my 75A-3. it took an entire day to pack it and the material set me back around $70. Never again.

I have gotten away with it, but a wood crate is best. I only ship heavy items FedEx. Fortunately, I have nothing heavy to ship.

I've had good luck with people shipping things to me in one of those big styrofoam
coolers. This is thinks like an R390A and a Racal RA17C12 and a big color TV chassis.
One was labelled for shipping chilled parts for reuse: parts of people that is. I was a
bit taken aback but the radio was in great shape. That one had well over two inches of
that stiff foam stuff. The other two were just regular coolers. The radios were well
packed inside.

I bet the shipper was really careful with that package marked chilled parts for people Nobody would want to clean up the mess if that broke open during handling!

Rodger WQ9E

The recent group of expensive Collins receivers $600 and higher on ebay have not sold in 10 days except one R-390A for $850. Under $500 has been selling briskly.

It's going to be interesting to see what this goes for tomorrow - I have a finger ready to punch in my highest bid......

Rockwell/Collins 851s-1 HF Receiver

https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listin ... 2866355647

The NZ$ is about US$0.68c at the moment.....

Ooh. Unless the bidding goes sky high in the next 24 hours, that will be a steal.

John

$150.00 now

Martin,

I hope you win that receiver!

Have you looked into using one of the bid sniping services? It would be worthwhile to increase your odds of winning near your desired bid amount.

Good luck!

Rodger WQ9E

Wow!!! I sure hope you win it!!!! Nice receiver!

No 'sniping' services here, but what you can do is put in your best offer and then tick the 'auto-bid' box - your bid will better by $1 anyone else's until you reach your offer. I usually just sit here with finger poised over the "Place Bid" button watching - but you have to keep refreshing the page as it doesn't automatically reload.

I see it's still at NZ$150, say US$100, with 8 hours to go.....

When necessary thats what I do as well. There's no need to let the machines automatically roll the price up

I was stabbed in the back by a slow refresh! It went for NZ$367.50 say US$250. I had a higher bid but by the time I refreshed back to the web page the bidding was over and the other guy won - one of the problems of living out in the sticks! Oh well, I never did like tantalum capacitors and I see from some of the PC board pictures there's quite a few of them - I'll console myself with that!

There is always Collins R-390A and 51J-4 for sale.