He carefully researched his purchase by reading astronomy magazines, contacting the local astronomy club, and reading their telescope buying guide, which describes the features to look for in a scope and has very frank reviews of many of the scopes on the market. He finally decided on the scope he wanted, a reflecting telescope with an 8-inch diameter mirror. Ralph really left out a step here, and could have saved himself some frustration, I think. When you buy a big-ticket item like a car, you don't order one until you've test driven a few, or at least asked people who have owned the model you want for their opinion. Before you order a scope is a good time to join your local astronomy club.
Many scopes look good in the ad, but perform terribly out in the field.
Club members can also tell you which mail order houses they've had good and bad experiences with. Anyway, fed up with the runaround he was getting from the mail-order houses, Ralph called the manufacturer directly. They put him in touch with a distributer who could provide the telescope sooner than all the rest. A lot of people would have quit a long time before Raph did. Unfortunately, his experience is fairly typical, and that's a disgraceful reflection on the manufacturers and suppliers of telescopes.