Ok, after listening to this continued cyber attack on F12 from "Andrew"
every single time the name Force 12 is mentioned, and after he included me
personally in one of his propaganda-mails, I decided that I can no longer
keep my comments to myself.
I have 28 Force 12 elements in the air, they have been up at one qth, taken
down, drilled out, moved, reassembled and up again, some over four years. I
live on an 800' hilltop-constant wind here every day, gust to 60 are not
uncommon with higher at times including some strong updrafts. The antennas
do NOT have any problems, have NOT had any problems and I am in the process
of buying more F12 product. Am I satisfied--you bet! I am not affiliated
with F12 in any way but I am getting weary of all this slammning of F12
going on ESPECIALLY when I and every single ham that I know has received
excellent product and service. Not only do I have the product, I have close
contester friends living within 20 miles and can say that ALL 6 of them
(owning from 1-3 F12 products each) have had NO problems and have nothing
but good things to say about their products. SO--why the Andrew
attacks--here is what I found out: You be the judge...
Andrew bought an antenna that was NOT rated for his high wind qth. After he
foolishly tried that, he had a problem. Even with his screw-up, F12 was nice
enough to offer him FREE replacement parts. He chose not to take them. (Go
figure??) He allow his damaged antenna to stay up and made no effort to
repair or secure it, resulting in more damage. F12 has documentation to show
that they again offered him the parts. He refused (Go figure again??) When
he decided he wanted a completely new antenna, they said no but they would
supply the parts--even though they were not at fault. SO-why the
attacks--F12 won't give him a new antenna as a reward for messing up his
first one. He is trying to blackmail and scam a FREE antenna!!
Comparison: If an auto owners water pump goes out and the dealer agrees to
replace it, but the customer continues to drive the car and burns up the
motor-who is at fault?? DUH!! The customer then attacks the credibility of
the dealer with misleading potshots whenever the opportunity presents
itself, for the purpose of damaging the dealers reputation until he gets a
new car!! FAIR?? I think not. Is he doing damage to the company? Only to
those who share the same IQ level and are naive enough to take his word a
face value.
No company is perfect, but reputation and intregity come from how the issues
and problems are handled. Fairness requires both sides to be heard prior to
a "verdict". One sided "testimony" is worthless.
I would suggest that if Andrew spent as much time rebuilding as he has spent
bitching, he would be on the air and off this reflector which would be a
breath of fresh air for all of us. So, to Andrew-the next time you choose to
include me in your propaganda war -you will get a response--and it will not
be a free antenna.
It is hard enough to try to build and run a fine and reputatable company
without putting up with anyone with a self serving agenda spreading false,
undocumented and misleading information.
Tommy
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
[mailto:owner-towertalk@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Andrew Williamson
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 4:38 PM
To: TowerTalk
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Re:rope in elements
In message <005f01c0b793$06b3dc20$0300a8c0@cruncher>, Guy Olinger, K2AV
<k2av@contesting.com> writes
>F12 is making those antennas hand over fist. C3SS and Z3's are the big
>sellers. I can count the dropped piece accounts here (not to discount
>them at all) on my fingers. F12 has what, ten thousand, twenty thousand
>antennas out there? I have heard a lot more stories about F12 surviving
>bad ice loads and springing back to original form.
That's like taking a census of 100 people, getting two negative
responses and then saying that only two people in the entire population
has this opinion (instead of 2 per cent).
F12 may have 10-20,000 antennas out there, but there are only 1500 or
1600 people on this reflector (correct?). Of those, lets be generous
and say a quarter have a F12 antenna (I doubt if that many have). So,
out of that sample of 400 F12 owners we are seeing up to 10 failures. A
1:40 failure rate doesn't really inspire confidence. And, I would say
that the people on this reflector are probably the more competent
antenna builders (they certainly have an above average interest if they
are here).
I have personally only seen four installed F12 antennas and three of
those have had failures of one type or another. The one that hasn't
failed is a C3(something) at about 35ft. The ones that have failed are
a Magnum340, a 5BA and a C4-something. From that, I *could* say that
3/4 of F12 antennas will fail, but that would be a pretty stupid
statement as it's not true. To get accurate results, you need a larger
sample.
Andrew Williamson GI0NWG / AC6WI
Homepage = http://www.gi0nwg.freeserve.co.uk/
One of the ZL9CI gang
http://www.qsl.net/zl9ci/
|