QTH.COM Swap Chat

Thinking back to when radios were hand wired ... or at least the jumpers from PC board to PC board required a human hand ... the price of the radio reflected the labor costs.

Now radios are all surface mounted IC chips and plug into the mother board with very little human effort required.
Set up the machine, load the parts, start stamping them out, and about the only human attention they get is during QC testing.
In other words they are a LOT cheaper and faster to make!

I would think the radios would get cheaper not more expensive.

Now days you can buy an FM reciever for $1 (with earplugs) at WalMart.

a Hallicrafters SX 42 back in the early '40s was in the 5 to 6 hundred dollar
range. AM FM CW SW to 30 MC.

those dollars are now in the ten times value so an SX 42 would now be in the
$7k range.
But you can by an AM FM SW radio for a hundred bucks now...

Even an expensive transceiver is now in the 7 to 10K range.

Many are much cheaper. Icom 718 in the range of the $600 the SX 42 cost 60 years ago and it was just a receiver, no SSB..

A Heathkit DX 100 was about $120. 100 watts AM. Transmitter only.
that equates to around $1200 now.
So Radios are much cheaper now..