Re: Strategies for Buying Test Equipment on E*bay Part 2

It has mostly taken the good stuff out of the flea markets. And it has undercut thieves like Tucker and Metric big-time.

John

Yes, although buying through eBay gets you a somewhat better idea of whether or not you can trust the seller, since most test equipment sellers on eBay have plenty of history available to examine. Plus the availability is much better -- flea markets are always hit or miss, of course.

Granted, the guy who was fully prepaid to repair some old boat anchor -- if need be -- and hence was willing to take a chance on $50 flea market special that would go for $250 if known to be working and calibrated has lost a lot of his advantage.

In terms of performance per inflation-adjusted-dollar, test equipment is as cheap as ever, I think.

It's raised purchase prices for people with product and lowered them for buyers-- and the middlemen lost out. Practically the definition of a more efficient market.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

In, say, 1965, a Tek 545 with a CA dual-trace plugin was about $1500, the price of a basic Chevrolet. 30 MHz, 70 pounds, maybe 500 watts. Now a Tek TDS2012, color, storage, averaging, FFT, 100 MHz, 20 watts/5 pounds maybe, is about $1500, a tenth the price of a cheap car.

DVMs are a lot more radical than that... $40 now versus $4000 then.

I once visited a shop that had an entire wall, like 4 full racks, of old GR gear that was, bottom line, a 40 MHz frequency counter. Crystal sources, analog frequency meters, precision generators, Lissajous display scopes, interpolation oscillators.

John

John