Someone using Gary North's mailing list, and even referring to his parents' in the flyer, is offering Gen III night vision goggles at $2995. Flyer says "This is excellent value." Any comment? Being able to see in the dark is certainly an advantage; Gen III is state of the art. Has anyone found something similar for less?

-- alex (cognitiveone@yahoo.com), December 13, 1999

Answers

For what it's worth; gen III is *not* state of the art, it's just the best available to civilians. Unless you've got money to burn I'd stick with gen I for now. While it doesn't have the same optical clarity as gen III, it allows you to see movement and form and for a fraction of the cost.

-- Choirboy (choirboy@hellzchoir.edu), December 14, 1999.

Good luck! Take a look at http://www.nightvis.com/docs/sngltube.htm and note that all of the units listed are Gen III. What is with the price diference if they're all Gen III? Night scopes are kind of like phonograph cartridges. The manufacturer makes a whole bunch of them and then tests them to see how good they are.

Example, Shure sold a wide range of phono cartridges. Actually they only made one model of each needle style (eliptical versus conical). The only difference between an M33, M55, M77, M91, M93, and V-15 was how well it performed when tested. Same goes with night vision tubes, there is no physical external difference between the X, B, C, U, and SU units except how they tested out. Hence the making of the point that the units come with the tube sheets. Your better phono cartridges also always came with individual frequency resonse test charts for each channel, channel balance specs, etc.

Now unless you can compare by actual use or comparing tube sheets (individual tube test results) there is no way to compare that flyer's $2,995 model to the five models sold by Excaliber's between $2,595 - $4,245. Then of course there is the question of is the unit new or "reconditioned" (used)? It's not as bad with Gen III since they have a VASTLY longer lifespan than Gen II, but the tubes are still like light bulbs and only have a life of "x" hours.

Good luck.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), December 14, 1999.