Don't know what to say. In the early sixties, when I was a "boy" I first got into amateur radio. Back then it was sort of a fraternity, and if you effed up you caught 'ell from those who were your "fellow amateurs."
For a very long time now, "anything goes." I used to "get on" with the "on the air" swap meets and go to "hamfests." I once bought an antenna tuner, a Nye VIking like this:
and yep. I asked "all" the questions.
I could smell the damn stinky thing as soon as I cut the package.
It had tobacco stains all over the front and the plastic on the meter, and the inlay on the knobs was all scratched up.
There was a giant egg shaped hole someone had hogged out of the rear for unknown reasons
The wattmeter board looked as if lightning had hit it.
I have photos, somewhere
It didn't even leave work. Shipped it back, and of course never recovered either shipping or phone charges. I had to threaten him to get the original price. I threatened to send it to then W7BUN, the net control, and let HIM look it over. THAT finally got a response.
My last bad deal, a few years ago, was trying to help a beginning ham, looked over a 2 meter (VHF) "rig" at a hamfest. Ask the guy questions. "Oh yeah, works great." The volume pot was so bad you couldn't get ANYTHING out of the speaker or phone jack. This is a job, that if you had to pay a commercial shop rate, would've been worth more than he paid for the radio.
I changed the pot for free, and now he's no longer a friend.
So in some ways I got screwed twice, even though it was only my time.
The point? Is there one? There are honest folk and there are scumbags, there is everything in between, and there are some that are a hell of a lot WORSE.
