Sotto:
I mentioned Canada, because I have family in that great country as well. Good excuse as any to visit them. One of my cousins said he obtained a ACR unit there about mid January of this year and only paid about $288 USD well below the list of $599 USD here in the states. Unfortunatley, the company he bought it from went under in April because of a divorce. Most of the time I will see any new electronic item in most catalogs with the ususal description and then putting the word *CALL in the price column. This translates (in my book anyway) to "how much can we soak the customer for; today?" The whole idea of paying more than MSRP is absolutely absurd. Another reason is (Doug or Chris jump in if I am wrong) the Canadians do not require the additional 121.5MHz or Morse code 'P' in their units as does the USA. This is no doubt one of the reasons the units were not available until the first of this month. Is the two additional features of the US models really worth an extra $200 to $300? No thanks I say. People who know me know I buy "the best" and spend less for it. Sometimes, it is just a simple matter of negotiating and negotiating. Hope this helps.