During my time as a federal government employee, I have seen plenty of
valuable electronic gear destroyed because those responsible didn't want
to deal with completing the paperwork to DRMO or surplus the stuff.
Disgusting. I was able to donate several virtually new Motorola
repeaters to amateur radio organizations by doing a little extra work to
make sure THEY didn't get the sledge hammer.
Steve, N4JQQ
On 8/15/2013 10:22 AM, Jim Lux wrote:
On 8/15/13 8:02 AM, k3mm@verizon.net wrote:
At least the tool cabinets can stay intact. Those are worth a few
dollars, but doesnt change the fact that this acquisition was a huge
waste of taxpayer dollars on both ends. I'm sure there are lots of
public service entities or other government agencies that would be
quite happy to have them for emergency communications.
Except there's visible rust on those tool cabinets.
I would guess that a speculative public service entity would spend
more in labor costs assessing the condition and making repairs than it
would cost to buy a new one with manufacturer's warranty and all new
parts. It's different when it's a ham spending their own time, and
assessing their own risk. A very different situation than an agency
with legitimate safety and liability concerns.
Not to mention the whole additional cost of "parting out" the lot into
separate lots. Preparing the lot probably takes an hour or two per
lot, then the actual transfer paperwork probably takes a few hours per
lot. It's not like it's a 15 minute job to have someone come down,
verify the serial number, hook it up to tow vehicle and drag it out of
there. More like 2 or 3 hours..
Then there's the transportation cost. Say you're an agency in New
Jersey and you get one of those surplus towers from Alabama. How much
does it cost to ship it? You're going to have to put it on a flatbed
and haul it, or if you got lucky and its roadworthy (and licensed!)
you pay someone to drag it 1000 miles.
There is a non-insignificant amount of paperwork associated with these
surplus deals to make sure that there isn't fraud (Bob at the site
marks those gold bars as "scrap iron", and tells his friend Dave to
bid on it). That's why the "destruction/demil" requirement in many
cases. If you're shredding it, there's no incentive to "throw away
perfectly good equipment in the dumpster for a cohort to retrieve"
(something that has occurred more than once).
It wouldn't surprise me to find that the labor time per transaction is
in the 20-40 hour range.
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