John, Thank you very much for what you are trying to do with supporting TEN TEC. You have been a beacon for our community many times in the past and you continue to lend assistance.
My current HF radio lineup - all 20ft of the bench, as of this posting - is legacy Ten-Tec - and that includes peripherals such as amplifiers, tuners and whatnot. I can fix anything which goes wrong with the gear as long as I can get parts and service information. COTS stuff like semiconductors, capacitors, ICs...not an issue. Specialty items such as EPROMs, knobs, end caps, other OEM trim parts for the various equipment is a bit harder to source. Please continue to provide those components which are manufactured in-house, especially if there's a high demand for them.
Good comments. For the comment referenced here, there are literally thousands of other Ten-Tec users on the air that would not be shy to help another TECer. It's part of their pride, in many cases, that they are loyal to Ten-Tec and I believe they'd be happy to help another in their community. Same as Elecraft, I'm sure. I'm also sure that few problems are so unique that others would not have some input on it. And I believe that a more local ham could be of greater help where it comes to some problematic connection, for example, than someone on the phone hundreds of miles away. Pride should not be a factor where a ham wants his system to be the best it can be.
There are hams on contesting.com and on some of the yahoo groups that have serviced TEN-TEC and other rigs before, and are more than willing to answer questions on "why am I seeing??" in those forums. Some of those guys/gals would even offer to repair the rig. There are even ex-service department people that lurk there as well (here too) that answer questions. The idea isn't to push people away from TEN-TEC service department, or to gouge people, but to help the department itself stand alone and continue and not require sales to pay their department expenses. So that if it takes time to get stuff out, well, service supports itself. Since I am referring people to the "non - TEN-TEC employees/service department" I should make sure it is also clear that...... If you use someone other than the TEN-TEC service department for guidance or to perform a repair on your TEN-TEC product, you are taking into your hands the responsibility to ensure that what you do does not damage your rig, and if by following those "non-TEN-TEC" hams advice you damage your rig, TEN-TEC is NOT responsible for fixing what you broke. I personally don't know of ANYONE that has ever broken something following advice on those forums. Unfortunately, have to go on record as having said that. But I doubt typing text into a little box on this screen touts as anything legal.... ok, legal mumbo jumbo out of the way, and I got work to do 73, KI4JPL John Henry
The user community is probably going to be the "go to" place for the foreseeable future. At my company, which is considerably larger than TT will ever be, we still offer actual tech support to our customers. without cost... For now. I can see that changing soon however, because folks take a undue advantage of something that is "free". Our warranty / repair policy is pretty much as John Henry outlined, which is also industrial standard. Unfortunately, we are not industrial wealthy!
Wow it took me about 2 hours to read all 10 pages of the posts on this. Mike and John I think you have stated just about all you can on the subject and may have well repeated it three times at this point. Maybe it is time to just make all announcements on the website going forward. I think it was genuine and honest to take the time to post on this forum and put up with all the naysayers. From the over the air discussions I hear on 75 meters many hams are happy to see you as the new owner and look forward to the future and your success. I think you have made it very clear that you care about all the owners of past product and want to continue the legacy of the brand. I commend you for the procurement and your vision of the future for the company. I wish you the best in moving forward and turning around this wonderful company. It is great to see a USA product survive and with a little luck and lots of hard work hopefully a bright future will exist for the legacy to live on. Nuff said for now - onward through the fog and soon into the bright sunlight.
To Mike N8WFF We're almost neighbors ! No - fifteen dollars isn't going to break my back... My post must've been misunderstood. I am most certainly looking forward to having the Jupe repaired. Been just waiting for a more appropriate time to send it in. Not sharing details, but had a lot of very drastic family changes in the time after the Jupe went out of service. Plenty of other rigs have their share of air time. Looking forward to the Jupe being back in the daily driver line up. Thanks to all at Ten Tec, both veteran and new staff. We'll be in touch. 73 de N8NSN ..
When I was repairing consumer electronics I had a minimum bench charge that had to be paid when an item was brought in. And I had a disposal fee If I thought someone was trying to get out of paying the garbage guy to pick up their junk 32 inch TV! This was just as LCD screens were coming out and the big tube sets were starting to get long in the tooth... Nobody was going to spend $400 to drop a picture tube in one. My minimum was $20 and to dispose of one back then cost $50 for a household pickup(we took out stuff out by the truck load and got it about 1/3 price that way) so I tacked on $20 if I thought someone was trying to get away with dumping. A lot of people got huffy until I told them the garbage guy is going to charge you $50 to pick this thing up! And I did charge for any phone calls that went over 15 minutes on computers I had sold that were out of warranty. We offered lifetime free phone support on the TV/VCR/DVD thing but my boss paid me for long calls because it cost me time from the tech bench and that cost me commission! I got 25% of all sales profit on repairs, tv antenna installs etc...
I worked in a Radio-TV shop part time in a large city and we had a $17.50 "checking charge" for radios and the TV department charged a little more. That was our minimum handling charge for items brought in. It was in 1968.
When your first press release is that you're not going to honor outstanding sales orders and you're going to charge bench fees that rival those charged by skilled surgeons, then I dare say your "first impression" to the Amateur community is one of a charlatan. (Any bets that the bench technician never sees anywhere close to that $140/hr in their own pocket...?!?! I think "Dishtronix" just put the last nail in yet another American legacy manufacturer. Vaya con dios, TenTec. 73 Steve, K4YZ Winchester, TN
I enjoyed reading your qrz.com bio. Impressive... I also plan to check out your Science Fiction stories.
Surgeons? Really? I guess you haven't been in the hospital lately. a typical abdominal surgery will cost around $30,000 -40,000. Open heart? over $100,000 etc.... Of course a tech would not see the $145 in his pocket. nor would a doctor get all that. There is a hospital to run and a big staff to pay for all they do like the nurses that do most of the hard work who don't see close to that amount either., it is called the price of doing business. ie overhead. If you want it cheap or not have all the over head to pay go to one of the forums as has been suggested and pay someone that does it from their basement work shop. 73, Tom I wish them well with Ten-Tec, it is not a unreasonable rate at all.
Now that the new web site is up may I suggest that a "last updated on mm/dd/yyyy" be added at the bottom of the page so we know when new info was added without reading everything over again.
