A Facebook Marketplace deal, a stranger’s news, and why every shack needs a plan.

Today I made an offer on Facebook Marketplace for some radio equipment. I felt bad about it. The offer was low. It wasn’t a lowball, and it wasn’t one of those insulting “is this still available, I’ll give you twenty bucks” messages. It was an honest offer, just a lot less than he was asking. It was what I had.

He thought about it for a while. Then he said yes.

I was pleased the way you’re always pleased when a deal comes through. Then we started working out the logistics, and he told me something I wasn’t ready for.

He said he didn’t need the stuff anymore. He had cancer, and he wasn’t going to be around much longer.

What I didn’t ask

I didn’t ask if he was married. I didn’t ask what kind of cancer it was. I didn’t ask how long he had. I wanted to ask all of those things and a dozen more. I wanted to know what his station looked like when it was all set up. What bands he liked. Who he worked. Whether he chased DX on VHF. Whether anyone in his life knew what any of this gear was.

But it didn’t feel like my place. I was the guy buying his radios, and that was the whole of our connection. So I kept it to times and places, and I said I was sorry, and that was about all I could manage.

I’m not good with my feelings, and I’m honestly not sure how I feel right now. Part of me feels guilty for paying less than he asked. Part of me is glad the gear is going to someone who’ll use it rather than to a dumpster. And part of me just feels heavy, the way you do when a stranger hands you something bigger than a box of equipment.

The gear

From the pictures, it looks like he may have been a smoker, so there’s going to be some cleanup. Anyone who has ever opened a radio from a smoker’s shack knows that yellow-brown film that coats everything, inside and out. It’ll take some time, some cleaner, and some patience, but it’ll come off.

About half of it I’ll keep. The other half will be resold or gifted, probably to newer hams who could use a leg up. That feels right. This stuff doesn’t belong on a shelf. It belongs on the air.

Why was he selling it himself?

Here’s the question that has stuck with me all day. Was he selling everything now because there was no one else to sell it? Or was he trying to make it easier on his family, so they wouldn’t be left with a room full of boxes and cables and no idea what any of it was worth?

I didn’t ask. I wanted to ask so much.

Either way, it got me thinking about something every one of us is going to face someday, whether we plan for it or not. When an operator becomes a Silent Key, the family inherits the shack. Most of the time they don’t know an HF rig from a power supply. They don’t know that one radio is worth two thousand dollars and the box next to it is worth twenty. They don’t know which of your friends would treat the gear right, and which local club would happily come help. Too often it all goes to an estate sale or a scrap pile, or it gets sold for pennies to whoever shows up first.

This man did the work himself, while he was sick. Most of us won’t have that chance, or won’t take it.

Where J-Vault fits in

This is the exact problem I had in mind when I built J-Vault, one of the modules in ARS Suite. I’m not going to turn this post into a sales pitch (it’s free and open source anyway), but I do want to explain what it does, because today drove the point home for me.

J-Vault does two simple things:

  • It keeps an inventory of your station. Each item gets a category, make, model, serial number, estimated value, where it’s located, and what you want done with it: keep in the family, give to a friend, sell, donate, or toss.
  • It keeps a list of first-call contacts. These are the people your family should call first, sorted by priority. For each one, you note how they know you and which pieces of gear they should be offered. Your Elmer gets first crack at the key you learned on. The club gets the antenna analyzer. Your buddy who’s been eyeing your amp for years finally gets his chance.

You can export all of it to a CSV file, print it, and put a copy with your will or your important papers. The data lives in a private local database on your own computer, kept separate from your logbook. A one-click, formatted estate-handoff document is on the roadmap, but even today the export gives your family a clear list and a short phone list to start with.

You don’t have to use J-Vault, either. A spreadsheet works. A notebook works. The ARRL publishes a free Estate Planning Workbook with inventory forms and lists for items to be given away, sold, donated, or discarded. The tool doesn’t matter. What matters is that somebody, other than you, can make sense of your shack when you’re gone.

Do it now. Do it while it’s just a chore and not an emergency.

To the seller

I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. I’m not using your name, and I never got your call. But I want to say this anyway.

Thank you. Thank you for saying yes to an offer that was less than your gear was worth. Thank you for trusting a stranger with things you obviously cared for. And thank you for telling me why. You didn’t have to.

I’ll clean these radios up and put them back on the air. The pieces I don’t keep will go to hams who’ll use them, and I’ll tell them where they came from. Every contact made on this gear will carry a little bit of your station with it. That’s how this hobby works. The signal keeps going long after the operator steps away from the key.

I hope your remaining days are full of good company, good conditions, and as little pain as possible. I hope the people around you know how much you mean to them.

When your time comes, I hope the bands are wide open.

Fair winds & sunspots, OM. 73, and thank you.

73,

de Mike WM3J