I heard that Ten Tec was secretly bought by a company called, CYBERDYNE. and has been assigned to the SKYNET DIVISION.. and all this is just a diversion.
John: In many ways it is sad that Birchfield sold the company. It appeared to be doing well when he had it. I wonder if they still have good government contracts. V P of engineering for you? I want ten tec to succeed. I recently purchased an Eagle. Nice radio. I also have a Triton IV. The YL loves to use it. Easy to use. Richard WN9DDV
No, I'm not the VP of engineering. In reality there are a LOT of other people who have a lot more qualifications and experience in the amateur community that would fill those shoes a lot better than myself. I have a good job that I enjoy, my part time consulting business in the evenings is working out real well at the moment, but I am very willing to help Dishop out to try to get TEN-TEC self sustaining again. Re Burchfield, Jack helped sustain a great business created by Al. I have only good words to say regarding Jack. He was great to work with and for.
Thanks but I don't need or want to contact "him". I just think it's bizarre that the announcement of the purchase is being handled this way instead of a formal news release. In any case, good luck to Ten Tec. I have been a satisfied Ten Tec gear owner since the late 1970s.
You guys that don't think this would work seem to be the same people that said HRD would be out of business in 18 months. So the rule of thumb is, if hams on QRZ think it will fail, it will become wildly successful.
Wow. I will miss the ten-tec service department. In general, the few times I spoke with Gary in the sevice department; the calls were short and very helpful. Nothing that would have "cost the company money". Surely, there must have been a plethera of other calls that did indeed cost the company too much in lost time. Now, I have a Jupiter that has a cooked AF amp chip, and a frozen T/R relay control chip. A whole whopping $8 dollars worth of parts. Not only am I finding that there may be an impossibility in having ten tec fix it, at the very least it's going to be a lonnng wait until they can even have it sent in and serviced. The worse rub is that if the "service manual" for the Jupiter were available to the public.. I could fix it myself. So, Gary knew exactly which repairs were needed and estimated that this repair would have cost about $300 for service, parts, and shipping back. This new information on tentec reads as if that $300 quote is certainly now, null and void. :-( Anyone need a clean Jupiter parts rig? It's simply not a radio worth, to me, what is now sounding like it will be well over $300 repair to tack on to the initial price paid for it... I am certainly hoping good things happen for tentec. Who knows, maybe by some good stroke of fate - the repair may still be around that $300 mark...
Ten-Tec owner here since 1970. It's only a dead brand at this point and will have to be rebuilt from the ground up. I won't be doing the heavy lifting to make that happen. Sorry to have to say that. Somebody will be spending a lot and investing time to rebuild some kind of trust or it will be Tokyo Hi-Power etc. etc. 73, Mike
I got my Ten-Tec issued fixed over the course of 32 different 4.5 minute phone calls to the factory today. (Turns out it was my Chinese-manufactured power supply, whoops). Stickin' it to the man! ;-)
I hope it works out for the TenTec equipment owning hams however this "news" is really bizarre with an amateur making announcements for a company he does not officially represent. Sounds much like a plausible deniability stratagem by Mr. Dishop. I'm not surprised that they would have to end the free-bee service as there are many freeloading hams out there. Opinion From my point of view, the only way for TenTec to survive is to make a superior/high end product at a high end price, offer stellar customer service, and offer great warranty service with pricey extended warranty (something similar to Apple Computer's thought process) . The alternate path is to make and sell a product aimed at the low end market and/or import and resell for China. With that model, you'd see layoffs, less customer service, and flat price repairs by board swap out. The "fail" strategy would be making a barely adequate product at a non competitive price, offering lagging customer service, pricey tech shop service and relying on the TenTec "brand" to sell the idea to amateurs.
good for him - gutsy call but the correct one - years ago I worked for a competitor and too many customers wanted to call or drop in at their convenience and expect the service tech to hand hold them for periods of time - we had a policy of when the tech would take calls or visit with the customer - it's a good call and results in good service to those valid customers needing the tech's expertise -
I hope Ten-Tec makes it under Mr. Dishop, but it looks like he does not really have the resources to do it. We would probably all like for the company to survive and prosper, but it is not a charity.
Agree. Makes me wonder if this is serious. Actually I think the way this has been handled the past month or two has done some damage.
There is no existing contract. The contract that was at one time has been dissolved because one of the parties to that contract no longer exists. The old company is not here. The new company is doing you a favor to make an avenue for you to recover your radio at all if you wish to do so. It was in a facility that was closed --- your radio is in it ........... so your legal recourse to recover it would be expensive and take time. That they offer you a chance for a fairly speedy return at a fairly low price (compared to the cost of the radio) is a sign of their intentions to do the right thing. If the radio isn't worth it or not worth it to you the choice to abandon it is a reasonable choice and your choice to make. The obligation to take care of someone they don't know or owe anything to is not the new company's. The TenTec situation is sad on several levels --- but no one can insulate you from the realities of the business world. I too have owned and really enjoyed several TenTec radios over the years and hope they are able to return to a strong position. I applaud the efforts of the new owners and wish them well. I sympathize for those with radios in "limbo" but think you have been given as easy,cheap, fast way out as is possible in today's business world.
