I once bought some old Fluke?6070A and 6080A signal generators at an online military base auction.? Nothing super high tech: these are 500 MHz and 1 GHz signal generators. To be honest, I wasn't happy with the purchase as the generators were in really poor condition; a fact that wasn't so obvious in the bad quality auction photos.? But, I reluctantly carted them back home and chalked up the experience as a lesson learned.
A year or two later, I received a letter from the auctioneers.? The letter said that my Fluke signal generators were on the ITAR list and it gave me the option of returning them for a full refund.? YES!!!!!!!? Another option was to submit an affidavit stating that the equipment had been disposed of, or destroyed (which wouldn't invoke the refund).? I promptly returned the JUNK for a full refund!
I don't know why such old, obsolete technology was on the ITAR list.? Someone suggested that it might appear on a list of equipment necessary to repair some more complex military hardware, like a radar system or some sort of avionics.
