FM MPX Alignment tutorial for "dummies"

[davefr]

This is exactly what I was afraid of when I made the purchases.
I got the Panasonic first, which was cheap so I wasn't too worried about it not working or not turning up and so forth.
So once that turned up in good condition, well packed I thought I'd take a chance on the HP RF gen.
Looks like I got lucky, the seller was a good communicator and seemed honest enough.

So we can say it is a bit of a crap shoot, you might get lucky and end up with some nice kit, or you might end up with a disaster...

If you buy a unit advertised as working and follow all of Ebay's seller protection rules and timelines, then it's virtually impossible to get screwed. You may go thru some hassle/delays to get refunded but the risk is extremely low and it's the seller who pays the cost of a return. I would never trust a seller to replace a problematic unit. A buyer's recourse is SNAD/refund.

So what's the catch here? This Chinese seller claims to have 10 VP-81741's at about $400/ea and free shipping. I can't imagine old signal generators are the typical type of fraudulent item. Maybe this reseller is trying to get rid of old factory stock. He says both "new" and "used" in his ad. Hi feedback is poor but is there really any $ risk other then wasted time?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3041140476...gv=DefaultOrganic&_trksid=p5411.c100167.m2940

 

[kevzep]

If you buy a unit advertised as working and follow all of Ebay's seller protection rules and timelines, then it's virtually impossible to get screwed. You may go thru some hassle/delays to get refunded but the risk is extremely low and it's the seller who pays the cost of a return. I would never trust a seller to replace a problematic unit. A buyer's recourse is SNAD/refund.

So what's the catch here? This Chinese seller claims to have 10 VP-81741's at about $400/ea and free shipping. I can't imagine old signal generators are the typical type of fraudulent item. Maybe this reseller is trying to get rid of old factory stock. He says both "new" and "used" in his ad. Hi feedback is poor but is there really any $ risk other then wasted time?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304114047610?_trkparms=amclksrc=ITM&aid=1110006&algo=HOMESPLICE.SIM&ao=1&asc=20140131123730&meid=f2929b98ec154c15b7968d25bb4ec94f&pid=100167&rk=2&rkt=15&sd=114954656297&itm=304114047610&pmt=0&noa=1&pg=5411&algv=DefaultOrganic&_trksid=p5411.c100167.m2940

In my case there was no catch, everything turned up in working condition as advertised.

If there was a catch, it would be that because I live in New Zealand way down in the South Pacific region, it is a complete pain and expensive to return something....

PunkerX had a terrible experience, so I think its worth discussion both situations so people are aware of what could happen, then you can decide for yourself whether you can be bothered having to ship something back halfway around the world....