I’ve been kicking around the notion of selling my KX3 lately. There are no problems with it and it remains one of my favorites. But it isn’t seeing much use these days and I can’t help but to have noticed how much the price for it has risen and continues to rise. Given the supply chain issues that make delivery of a new one take an entire baseball season and it’s easy to see it as a rare commodity. So if a person was going to sell their KX3, right now would be a great time to get top dollar for it.

In days gone by I frequently bought new equipment, used it for awhile, then sold it to help fund the next purchase. I always kept original manuals, receipts, accessories, as well as the original boxes as I found that all helped when the time came to sell it.

And then one day I sold my TenTec Eagle, a gorgeous bit of CW goodness that was pristine in every possible way. As it turned out, that transaction made my life a living hell for a season.

The guy I sold it to drove me nuts with constant questions via telephone and email. Had I been charging even a modest hourly rate for tech support it would have been a nice income stream.

In addition to his need for frequent hand holding when using the equipment there was also the occasional insinuation that something might be wrong with it. “I hear an odd signal on 14.003 early in the mornings - did you ever hear that when you had it?”

Being a nice guy I always responded and tried to help him, even offering to take it back and refund his money several times. But the experience was an endless nightmare until the guy suffered a stroke and was no longer able to communicate. I hate to say it, but his horrible affliction improved my quality of life by leaps and bounds, does that make me a bad person?

Since then, I have been much more inclined to reduce the build-up of too much ham radio gear by chucking perfectly good equipment into the dumpster instead of trying to sell it. And there has been a lot of that going on lately as one of my retirement projects has been downsizing all the “stuff” that naturally accumulates during the life of a ham.

So after a little more thought, I concluded that life was simply too short to sell my KX3. I’d rather it live out its days unused and returning to dust than risk another transaction like the old Eagle. After all, the fully-loaded KX3 is a complicated gadget and absolutely no one reads the fine manual anymore. That, and I’d really hate to have to hope for a serious medical condition on a clueless buyer just so I can get a good nights sleep.