Dumb question #1

[Brian Wood]

According to The Inflation Calculator (http://www.westegg.com/inflation/),

"What cost $1.00 in 1975 would cost $3.37 in 2000."

So, if an HW-101 was $250 in 1975, it would be $842.50 today. However, you
couldn't actually make an HW-101 duplicate today, nor would you want to - it
would not sell. Technology has managed to make cool new stuff available for
roughly the same price. So, I think you could make a radio that had roughly
the same functionality as an HW-101 using transistors and ICs and still sell
it for about $250 in Y2K dollars. But in order to sell it, you'd need to
make a better display, and add memories, tuner, keyer, speech processor,
noise blanker, etc., and thus you'd be selling it for upwards of $850.

Brian, W0DZ

-----Original Message-----
From: Heathkit Owners and Collectors List
[mailto:HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV]On Behalf Of Justin L Hall
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 2:44 PM
To: HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Subject: Dumb question #1


This is a really dumb/hard question- But here goes.
I have an HW-101.  If I bought the kit in 1975, how much would it cost in
Year 2001 dollars?
I know if you save the labor on building things you save money, but I've
looked at Ramsey's site and $10 seems too much for a battery and a board
for a code oscillator.  Seems like a ripoff to me.  I frequently get sent
to some places in the world where I'm there for a few weeks and it would
be a lot of fun to take a kit and work on it.  But I don't want to pay
all that money for something that's just a toy.  An HF rig even with ICs
would be fun to have and use.  Not to mention I could carry it with me
and use it.  There's even a market for HF/shortwave radios that are PC
cards to put into a tower computer, I'm sure, but it's a hard sell.
So those of you that have built them, how much would it have cost?
Justin
KB7LAK/VQ9JH

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