[TowerTalk] Towable towers available from the government

[Jim Lux]

On 8/15/13 8:02 AM, k3mm at 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.