Quote:
Originally Posted by electricflyer
Since they were a gift to you why not donate them to a local school that may have a group interested in ham radio.
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That's a distinct possibility. In order to keep young (high-school or younger) hams interested in the hobby, they've got to have other kids to talk to, not just old geezers like us.
So far, I have donated five or six Kenwood TM-261A -- I once had nine of them, and now I have three that are dedicated APRS trackers -- to new young hams and to radio clubs in middle schools and high schools. These included all original packaging, manuals, and so forth, which I consider essential; luckily I'm a pack rat. It shouldn't look to the recipient as if the kids are being used as a landfill. Every now and then I buy a new radio of that sort (TM-281A nowadays, for example), play with it a while, and place it for adoption. David Miner, W4SKG, a preacher with many contacts in schools and in the world of youngsters, often acts as a go-between. Sometimes we talk it up and get people to donate power supplies and run J-Pole-building sessions so the kids can put the radios on the air quickly.
In order to run any of these HTs down that pathway, I'll need to acquire wall-wart chargers and original user manuals, at least; no manuals or original packaging were in the box I got yesterday. So, guess what new searches I have running on eBay? One way to get the original boxes and stuff is to buy broken radios that happen to come with it all. But they have to be priced as scrap, nearly.
I'm gonna keep at least the TH-F6a and one IC-91AD for myself, though. I have no other 220 MHz or D-Star equipment.