[TowerTalk] Ferrite or choke baluns?

[Jim Brown]

On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:42:24 -0500, jim Jarvis wrote:

>5x markup is standard in auto parts, as it is with manufacturers 
for  
>spare parts.
>What do you suppose Radio Shack charges for a 1k ohm resistor?   
>probably costs them less than a penny,

I cannot agree, Jim. Not when I've done the research to tell them 
precisely what to stock and users what to buy, they're stocking a 
very limited number of part numbers, and they should be able to sell 
in large quantities if they stock the right parts and market them 
properly. 

Of course it's costly to handle onesy twosy parts orders, but hams 
should have reasonable access to 10-50 quantities at far better 
prices than what these parts sellers are doing. And they're selling 
so-called W2DU choke baluns that are vastly inferior to W2DU's 
original design! 

AND -- I worked for nearly 10 years in pro audio sales. I NEVER sold 
a single thing at a markup greater than 1.5X cost (not being a good 
guy -- the market simply wouldn't allow it!), and the vast majority 
of it went at 1.3X. That was 25 years ago -- nowadays, a vendor is 
lucky to make 1.1X. 

And I don't buy resistors (or any other small parts) from Radio 
Shack unless it's an emergency -- I'm in the middle of nowhere, and 
I have to fix something. Besides, most of their stuff is cheap crap 
anyway.:) 

Back in Chicago, I helped organize a group purchase of nearly 2K 
pieces of toroids and a smaller quantity of big clamp-ons. Here in 
the Bay area, we've done nearly twice that quantity, and as well as  
the other #31 parts in my Appendix 1. I'd guess that the average buy 
was at least 20 pieces for the Chicago group and more than double 
that for the NCCC group. 

73,

Jim K9YC