Next sale: Wednesday 16 March 2011, 22:00 UTC

Posted on March 11, 2011 by admin

Folks

The next sale will be on Wednesday 16 March 2011 at 22:00 UTC.

Many thanks, Howard

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26 Responses to Next sale: Wednesday 16 March 2011, 22:00 UTC

  1. Malolm Granville GI8AFS says:
    March 11, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Whilst I appreciate that you have found this is the fairest way to distribute these at the moment, I have no wish to enter into the scrum. From the present sales data have you made any calculation as to when these competitive sales will saturate and if it will be possible to order one from stock?

    • admin says:
      March 12, 2011 at 7:29 am

      Hello Malcolm

      Things started to slow down very slightly in the 20 February batch, and more so in the 4 March batch which took about two minutes to exhaust, and for the first time there was no Paypal inventory overselling (I usually anticipate about 7% oversell where Paypal’s distributed systems catch up with each other).

      So on 4 March, as there was no overselling, I had about ten left over that I placed a couple of minutes after the original sale exhausted. These took a few minutes to go, so absurd as it may seem, things are definitely slowing down.

      I don’t have a crystal ball, nut I would hope in the next few weeks we’ll be at sensible levels and I’ll be able to go back to doing my real job!

      Howard

      • Mike says:
        March 12, 2011 at 9:38 am

        And then a magazine will review it and demand will go stratospheric.

        • John says:
          March 12, 2011 at 1:05 pm

          Well, that happened. It came out in QST yesterday!

          • Mike says:
            March 12, 2011 at 7:38 pm

            Really? Mine has not arrived yet – 3000 miles of ocean in the way. Something to look forward to next week. Do they say anything interesting?

          • Bruce KF1Z says:
            March 14, 2011 at 5:13 pm

            All there is in there (QST note, by WB8IMY ) was a short spiel on it. And how hard it is to get.
            No review written, no specifications given.

      • Greg says:
        March 13, 2011 at 11:54 pm

        Hi all,
        I expect the “slow down” was most likely due to the 24hr notice related to the 4-Mar lot rather than a real decrease in demand.

        I know I missed out on that sale due to not checking this website every day!

        Cheers
        Greg

  2. Marc Tessier says:
    March 12, 2011 at 6:06 am

    How many units will be available this round?

    Thanks in advance…

  3. Joseph Tom (KB6JOE) says:
    March 15, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    How much of a time difference are we talking about in ordering ?

    • admin says:
      March 16, 2011 at 11:49 am

      Hello Joseph

      I believe that the Pacific West is currently 7 hours behind UTC, so it’s 3pm local for you.

      Howard

  4. Joseph Tom says:
    March 16, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    I blew it for some reason, I thought it was 7 earlier, and lost out on getting one. dang it all. (KB6JOE)

  5. Bob - VK2ABP says:
    March 16, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    OMG!!!!

    Looks like i have finally been successful in purchasing one of these after trying quite a few times. Now I look forward to it arriving here in Australia so i can have some fun.

    Cheers,

    Bob – VK2ABP

  6. Chris lee says:
    March 16, 2011 at 10:10 pm

    I don’t understand. I’ve tried between 2min before 22:00utc and 10min after and it always sais sold out. Has it sold out in a matter of milliseconds?

    • Rick, PE2AAB says:
      March 16, 2011 at 10:14 pm

      Yep,

      Unfortuanatly it was.

      The sale starts at exact 22:00:00hr UTC and at my next try at 22:00:30hr UTC it was sold out again.

      So that means that the whole batch was sold out within 30 seconds!!

      Rick,PE2AAB

    • Greg says:
      March 16, 2011 at 10:15 pm

      Tried exactly 22:00 got to log in to Paypal, selected my address, clicked checkout and they were gone! less the 30 seconds after 22:00 and I was reading it off GPS time!!

      Gutted!

  7. Chris lee says:
    March 16, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    Well that just sucks lol. I’ve been trying every sale and am too damn slow haha.

    • Rick, PE2AAB says:
      March 16, 2011 at 10:23 pm

      Lol 🙂

      Well,

      I was prepared with 6 browserscreens opened up, already logged on to the proper website (with the zone already checked!).
      A NTP synced clock in the left uppercorner of my screen, counting down in UTC, my PayPal password already in the CTRL+C memory and a good glass of soda next to my PC 😉

      It really was a matter of seconds 🙂 Try my tips with the next batch!

    • Bob says:
      March 17, 2011 at 4:46 am

      Chris,

      As suggested by others to you, I was already to go at the exact moment it hit 22.00utc
      I had the buy page open with the correct shipping selected, was logged into paypal on another window (found this made it quicker to get into paypal), and had my paypal password ready to paste once i hit buy. The ctrl+c, ok, ok and I was successful this time. Of course I have done this the last 3 or 4 times and have not been successful. But persistance will pay off 🙂

      Cheers,

      Bob – VK2ABP

  8. Philip Yates says:
    March 16, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    Did it the old fashioned way, looked at watch… Hmm 30 seconds past, so ticked the box etc, typed password into paypal. and now to wait for the post to get here…..
    Its mine!!!!

    Paypal invoice says paid. Maybe its luck of the first timer ?

    Phil G7BZD

  9. olivier says:
    March 16, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    Yes!
    Got one. I used the Canadian atomic clock (NRC) and clicked on the link at precisely 22h00 GMT. I had my PayPal password in my clipboard.

  10. Travis says:
    March 17, 2011 at 4:53 am

    I am just never going to be able to get one of these.. I truly give up. I’ll check back in a few years maybe there will be enough to go around then. I would pay 3 times the asking price for one today.

    How about some mass production

    KJ4NDP

  11. Silvio, ct1bpt says:
    March 17, 2011 at 7:28 am

    I’ll tell you something much more intriguing to me happened on sale on 4th March
    This past Monday I received two dongles. I was puzzled because on March 4 had bid only once. I went immediately to check mail and the current account from PayPal, and found that there were two payments with an interval of few seconds. As it happened, I have not the slightest idea … Also I was not too worried because had more friends who wanted the Funcube, but that intrigued me and intrigue … is that due to the slowness of the page or i have put two clicks Paynow gave and took two payments? because have two diferent ID payment, Is possible… I d´ont no… not problem.
    If they were two cars would be more concerned, not even able to put in the garage, :-)))
    73s
    Silvio
    ct1bpt

  12. Johannes, DG8NCV says:
    March 23, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    My dongle arrived savely on Monday morning.
    Thanks Howard for the quick shipping!
    The firmware update worked without any problem and I’m looking forward to have a lot of fun with the dongle!

    73s,
    Johannes, DG8NCV