[BC] The Economy and Used Gear

[Glen Kippel]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 1:27 AM, Milton R. Holladay Jr. <
miltron at mindspring.com> wrote:

> I usually get the impression that something that's not worth fixing or
> overhauling is not worth having, to begin with, if it is not an obsolete
> *type* of device. There are, of course, a few things that are OK that are
> simply disposable,  usually beacuse they are difficult to repair and are
> cheap.....er, inexpensive to begin with. Mostly, though, cheap is not
> inexpensive.
> A great number of maintainance problems are taken care of in the purchase
> process.
> I generally avoid manufacturers that obsolete their products fairly
> quickly................
>
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I don't know if this is still the case, but consumer electronics was
designed to have a manufacturing life of six months.  I.e., they come out
with a new model every six months.  Maybe the change is just a
silver-colored case instead of black, or vice-versa.  Or maybe an extra
feature (e.g. button).

Now, if you have a choice between a CD player with an MTBF of 10 years that
costs $1000, or a CD player with an MTBF of one year and a cost of $100,
which do you choose?  You could buy ten of the latter for the same price,
throw away each one when it breaks, and come out even.  Of course, this does
not apply to transmitters...