Hi all,
there are an <deleted> for sale on ebay by now. Europe only.
Hope this content is not inappropriate.
I did not find something on the policy about that but my english is so-so !
72/73
Eric
F6FLQ
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Eric,
Both items on offer look truly like new.
<deleted>
Hopefully, a CW enthusiast or collector will contact you soon.
73 gl, Heinz
Yes, it is highly inappropriate.
We do not allow for sale messages
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So, what seems to be just barely tolerated is when someone announces that they’re thinking about offering some of their now far too many things on eBay (like Colin M1BUU, for example).
Is that correct, Andy?
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I recall seeing a few links to For Sale items here on occasion. I think the discreet ones slip through the moderators net.
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Colin asked what markeplace did people use to sell equipment.
He didn’t advertise anything, we didn’t even know what, when or if he decided to sell something, just the outcome.
To judge that, you’d have to read a bit more than just one thread on the SOTA reflector …
By the way, there are WTB and FS opportunities for individuals on groups.io, for example in the Elecraft KX subgroup WTBandFS or in the MountainTopper group.
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We, the SOTA management team, have thought and discussed adverts on here over the years. We always come back to the point that it always becomes impossible to police effectively and would damage the ethos of this site.
We have thought about having Google Adverts running to help pay for the site costs. But people hate those kind of adverts. It would be hypocritical for me to support Google Ads when I run adblockers on my web browsers so I don’t see adverts. And we would have no control over what would be advertised. So no Google type adverts.
Then we have adverts from SOTA people. In a way, this site would be an ideal way to contact like minded radio hams. We could allow SOTA equipment to be sold.
For example, I have a KX2, a sought after radio by activators. I could list it on here and it would sell quickly. I’d be happy, someone who bought it would be happy and it would be used for SOTA purposes which makes other SOTA people happy. Now I have lots of radios here including a TS-570. Would it be OK to advertise that as a “fine chasing radio” as it’s a big rig and heavy to take up a hill. What’s special about a TS-570 that it would be OK to sell it as SOTA equipment when it’s just an HF radio? Then we have the FT-857. Plenty of people use them for activating and chasing. Should we allow an FT-857 but not allow a TS-570? Quite quickly we’d need to vet adverts to ensure only SOTA gear was sold and there would be disagreements over just what is a SOTA radio.
This is just SOTA people selling surplus gear. But what do we if someone running a business starts listing a “surplus EFHW” permanently? They’re getting free advertising to a niche group of possible customers. It costs a lot to run all the SOTA services, should we charge businesses a commission on items sold? Should we charge users a commission?
So we take the view, no adverts and that way this site keeps its feeling and community as it is. I use lots of forums and web sites on the internet, some ham radio related. I like to think this is a particularly nice place to visit. Occasionally we get a few raised voices but 99.9999999% of the time everybody is out to help everybody and we are all pulling in the same direction. Adverts would change that.
I mentioned Jim G0CQK was retiring from vetting reflector signups. Jim still monitors myself and Christophe ON6ZQ as we get up to speed doing this. We have had some people who offered to help. We haven’t forgotten about them but it’s good that myself and Christophe know what to do before we try to get new people involved. But in the 3 or so weeks I’ve been clicking the approve/reject button I have had to reject 3 or 4 possible spammer signups.
Keeping this site the way it is now is a big job and allowing adverts on here would make that a much bigger job. So we try to stop them as soon as they are seen. If you see something that’s advert, even a subtle and disguised advert and it’s not deleted it’s because it was missed by the admins.
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