The great ham shop merger

Hello all and surprise

Yes here I am posting on the Amateur part of the forum.

So what do you all think of the great ham shop merger?

Nevada radio, W & S, Moonraker & Sharman, all under 1 roof.

Will this increase competition between the shops or will it be more of a monopoly?
Will more buying power bring prices down for people new to the hobby? 
Will this help the ham community in general?

What are you thoughts. . . . .

Times must be hard, or they cannot compete with Lynchy.

Bought a fair bit of gear from Nevada, Mike is a top guy.
Saying that I have used all the big guys with no trouble.

I did notice the move announcement youtube video posted by Waters and Stanton thinking surely that's the Moonraker address......which happens to be near me.

Who knows what their future will bring but although I know I've never personally bought anything new from them this stuff does trickle down to the second hand market, which most seem to cover well too. (Trade-ins for 'upgrades' always seems to be a good market.)

In this day of internet purchasing, trust in such outlets and fierce pricing competition the world is bound to change much as it has for everything else.

I wish them well but also know that the radio enthusiast can be a tenacious b*gger obtaining gear from wherever they can.


Anyway Ray, now that you're posting in 'Amateur' discussions will we be seeing you licenced and on the Amateur bands? Ha! Ha! Enjoy your radio however you can no matter what apparent 'camp' it happens to be in. (It's all radio after all. )

Bought my first rig, FT790R, from SMC, remember them?
No internet back then had a nice 80mile round trip on the back of a mates scooter to pick it up.
Now that was fun, only broke down twice.

Unfortunately I think the fewer dealers we have the more we will pay.

The first CB rig I bought around 1979 was a Cobra 148 GTL DX, I paid £100 for it.

I bought my first new ham rig, a Trio TS530 SP back in November ‘85 from Reg Ward & Co. in Axminster, Devon, he was later taken over by SMC I think.

Last year I bought my second brand new rig, a Yaesu FT-891 from Radioworld, I had a 5% discount so only paid just over £600. I also use Lindars Radio in Yeovil quite a bit, he is very fair and has some excellent second hand radios & accessories.

Nice mention of Lindars there John and I often find myself drooling over their stock list only for my wife to scupper it all and state "No more junk!"

Don't know what she means, none of my stuff is junk?!?

There'll always be some sort of outlet as history has proved, coming & going, moving & changing and we'll all pay as much as we want to in the end.