Re: [MV] Vendors, flames, BS and Caveat Emptor

From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Wed Nov 17 2004 - 19:09:03 PST


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sonny Heath" <sonny@defuniak.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Vendors, flames, BS and Caveat Emptor

> My wife bought a digital at wallyworld and is only able to take a coupla
> flicks, then batteries dead, then she went and bought a charger and now
she
> tells me she can take pictures inside but can't figure out how to do it on
> the outside in the light.

Depends on your camera, of course, but two of them I've used to take web
photos for Ebay and company stuff have this horrible habit of eating
batteries left in them even when they're not switched on. Take a couple of
pics - turn it off - throw it in a drawer for a week and a half and then try
and take some more pics, and you're looking at "Battery Too Low to Take a
Picture". For the cameras I use, I remove the batteries when they're not
being used and store them in the camera's box. When I need 'em - they're
there. The other thing is that because of the drive to make everything
smaller and cheaper, they make it so the camera will only operate on
voltages from about 3/4 charged through full charge rather than make the
casing big enough to accomodate a larger number of batteries or larger
cells. Drop below 3/4 charge and you get the 'low battery 'warning, even
though you could take those batteries out at that very moment and use them
for another two months in your mini-maglite, and quite probably another
six-seven in your VCR remote.

When you buy batteries for it, get alkalines. Don't get rechargeables.
There are a bunch of reasons for that but since we're already pretty solidly
in Offtopicville as it is, I'll leave it at that. :)

Back to the header topic for a second - I've dealt with a few Ebay and
Supply Line vendors in the hobby for years and have only been burned once by
someone who shall remain nameless who figured "good, take-out" MX-6707
antenna mounts meant that the freq. selector knob could be rusted in place -
RF connectors could be broken off - and other pieces could be missing
entirely and *still* carry the label "good, take-out" in all his ads. Guess
it's his loss, really, as I'll never deal with the guy again - and I imagine
anyone else having much the same experience will think likewise. Those
sorts of...individuals....are around in every hobby. On Ebay I pretty much
scrutinize their feedback before even bothering to bid on anything, and also
make sure I read "the fine print" in the cases of those guys who jack their
shipping through the ceiling to sweeten the profit margin a few notches. If
you're buying a HMMWV hardtop kit and the vendor wants to charge you for
crating the thing - fine - it's a lot of work to do properly - but someone
charging you an extra $18.50 for "packing" your M37 distributor cap needs to
find himself another hobby to pollute.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:37:41 PDT