Something else to consider if you're adventurous: Dumpster diving. No, seriously - if you go around various industrial business parks and whatnot, and don't r

Something else to consider if you're adventurous: Dumpster diving. No, seriously - if you go around various industrial business parks and whatnot, and don't rile the security guards too much, you'd be surprised at what you can find - and many times it's just sitting next to the dumpster, not in it. A lot of companies upgrade their machines, but either don't know what to do with their old machines, or don't want to take the time or energy (laziness) to recycle them properly or donate them (paperwork, ya know) - so to the dumpster they go! Another option (though you typically have to pay something - but very little) are sales at hamfests. Find one in your area, spend a few dollars getting in to the fest, and bring with you a couple hundred bucks and see what you can buy. It may not net you the latest and greatest hardware, but you might find something worthwhile on occasion. That, or you'll walk away with something you never expected to see or purchase (you'd be surprised at the stuff that shows up at these fests when old hams clean out their garage). TBH, I think it's an ecosystem of hams selling to other hams to keep the stuff around because they run out of storage - kinda a community distributed physical storage system...lol.