Monday, March 01, 2010

Mathod in the madness?

I have been browsing for information about various circuits recently. Two books that are often recommended are "Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur" (which is now quite old) and its successor "Experimental Methods in RF Design". I decided to get a copy of the latter and was gobsmacked to find on Amazon.co.uk that only used copies are available, priced from £557.14. No, that's not a misprint, it's about 800 bucks in real money.

I clicked over to Amazon.com and found the same book listed as available new for a slightly more reasonable (joke) $600.00, or I could buy a used one for a whisker under $500.00. Who are these sellers kidding? Do people really pay $600 for a book that was published by the ARRL in 2003 with a cover price of about $40? I wish I'd invested in a pile of them - they would have been a better return on my investment than my shareholdings (sick joke.)

I browsed down the Amazon.com page to see the usual stuff Amazon tells you about a book and found that 37% of people (rich or insane people, presumably) buy the item featured on the page, while 36% buy "Experimental Mathods (sic - not a joke) in RF Design" for a mere $42.70. That's 36% who can't spell, I guess, but I can live with a misprint in the title if it saves me $550.

But seriously, what's going on here? Is "Experimental Mathods" a pirate copy using a mis-spelt title to avoid copyright infringement? Is a joke being played on somebody? If I buy it will I receive something other than what I expected, like searching for "mammaries" instead of "memories" on Google? I'm off to confused.com.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

In Sweden I can get it for 27 british pounds, incl shipping. I could buy it for you if you don´t find any alternatives. Eric SA5BKE

Jay Dighsx said...

Go here http://www.abebooks.com/ Pick more search options and put the title in and pick UK as country. Looks like you could get it for 23.75 pounds + shipping.

73s,
Jay aka KD8EUR

Rick said...

Or, just purchase it new from the ARRL:

http://tinyurl.com/5yeuw

US $50.

Unknown said...

Thanks for all the links. As ARRL has it I checked the RSGB bookstore and it appears you can get it from there too. The Amazon listings led me to think it must be out of print so I never thought to check there, though Amazon is usually cheaper anyway.

It makes it even less comprehensible why people are advertising this book for $600.

Jay Dighsx said...

"It makes it even less comprehensible why people are advertising this book for $600."

Because they can. Ebays full of crazy stuff like this. I saw a 20 year old so so Kenwood HF rig listed yesterday for 100 dollars more then its original list price.

Maybe they figure if they go fishing long enough someone will bite?

Jay aka KD8EUR

Steve GW7AAV said...

Caveat emptor!

The Interweb is full of traps for the unwarely and the click happy or spam would not be worth the effort.