Since this was originally a Reflector broadcast, a short comment to the
Reflector follows:
Good morning, Herb.
Appreciated your telephone call last week. Am not at all sure why there is
any hesitancy on your part, or anyone else, for that matter. Sometimes, it
appears there is not a person on the planet who can please everyone,
especially on the electronic highway!
There are plenty of people who come to visit Force 12. An entire group of
>50 people from the WRTC competition were here last summer, too, for an open
house.
We are very busy all the time and give production primary status. This means
that production goes ahead of new products, too. I just spent 18 hours this
last weekend testing a new antenna, simply to maintain the production and
customer time throughout the typical week. This is an antenna that many
people have asked for, so I am very glad to finally have it completed.
Anyone who wants to come by Force 12 is welcome. The concern is that I do
the tours and, therefore, I need to be here. I travel a fair amount and need
to coordinate my schedule. My usual work day usually starts before 6AM and I
am often here before 5. This is the time to respond to e-mails, which have
overloaded everything the last month! The current list was down to about 60
on Friday evening and is now back to 241 and does not include the Tower
Reflector or brochure requests. We appreciate all of the requests and
orders, so please keep them coming! The magnitude of the overload has
overwhelmed us and Natan, W6XR at Force 12 East is now sharing more of the
e-mails. My typical telephone calls range from 20-40 per day, with an all
time high of 52. I do my best to return calls; sometimes, there are not
enough hours in each day. I truly enjoy sharing ideas and trying to guide
people in their antenna selection. Many times I suggest a smaller system,
which is a better solution for the caller.
At this point, you called me from your local location! To address your main
question about delivery, one will find that we have been very good about
meeting delivery schedules for standard products. I recall several people on
this Reflector who have made this same comment in recent weeks. More unique
antennas, such as the 120 mph "H" models and other special orders, take much
more time, mainly because I fully assemble them, put them on the tower and
test them. Sometimes, I build them myself to make sure the production
documentation is correct. The usual good California weather is not always so
nice, as our recent weather here lost 4 days from my test schedule last
week. Each special order receives its own documentation package, which is
also unique.
Since you are staying a handful of miles from our house, I invited you to
come by this evening. If the weather had not been so lousy, the tower would
have a different configuration of "stuff" on it (getting ready for the
upcoming contest season), but it remains as on our web site photo.
You are also scheduled to come by Force 12 Wednesday morning. It was good
that you called, because I will be out of town tomorrow until late Tuesday
night.
We appreciate your call and look forward to meeting with you.
Hope you enjoy the Bay Area - at least the weather is nice this week!
Have a good day and 73,
Tom, N6BT
Force 12 Antennas and Systems
(Home Page http://www.QTH.com/force12 )
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions: towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests: towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search: http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search
|