Please read this, if you are so inclined, in it's entirety before responding.
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I would be very pleased if you or your friend Tommy would post this
response on the TT reflector relating to the deluge of comments that
ensued over TT's 30-day Return Policy. Please feel free to copy and
past it verbatum, and with my name and call sign associated with
it. I want people to hear my side of the story straight from the
horse's mouth. Thanks for your kind consideration.
73,
Bob, KW4CQ
For Public Release 7/27/2005
TT's refusal to sell me an Orion II, by Bob, KW4CQ
Dear Orion (and Jupiter) owners. I posted my story about TT's refusal
to sell me an Orion II with only one purpose in mind and that was
simply to bring to the public's attention precisely what happened to
me. I am not trying to be vindictive or put a spin on the facts. I
will let you be the judge as to whether TenTec's practice of black
listing former customers is ethically acceptable or not to you. There
is no "rest of the story". What I have told you are the facts, which
I will attempt to clarify and expand on here.
I ordered a Jupiter from TT several years ago, which was delivered
and found to have an instability problem. TT generously replaced it
with a second Jupiter, which was found to have significant birdies
and low sensitivity on bands 17 through 10 meters. I called them to
explain this and they agreed to refund my money after sending back
the Jupiter, which I did of course. I never received an explanation
from TT on the cause of the problems reported in the two Jupiters.
Not hearing from them with an explanation, and not realizing at this
point I had been black listed from ever buying products from them
again, I wrote a critical review on the Jupiters and TT and posted
this on eHam's Equipment Reviews under "Jupiter" transceivers. I
would recommend that no one contemplating doing business with TT ever
post negative reviews on eHam least you too get black listed by TT.
As to why I would want to buy a very expensive Orion II, let me say
this. I have carefully studied all the posts on
http://lists.contesting.com/archives/html/TenTec/2005-07/index.html
and elsewhere regarding the Orion II and considering that TT has had
ample time to work the bugs out of their original Orion firmware, I
decided I would take the plunge. Little did I know at that time that
TT would refuse my order. You see, I had more faith in their $4,000
Orion II product quality and performance then they have apparently.
Well, that thought has gone up in smoke now. As many of you
correctly pointed out; they didn't dare want to take a chance on my
returning it or writing a negative review on eHam. I was so convinced
they had the right product this time that I was even willing to buy
the $4,000 Orion II without the protection of their 30-day return
privilege. How dumb can I get some may ask?
So now you know the rest of the story. But just be careful what you
write about TT on eHam's equipment reviews. TT is watching you and
keeping score. The world needs critics; movie critics, book critics,
magazine critics, political critics, and even ham equipment
critics. If we were to give up our right to criticize (pro or con)
those things we have paid good money for wouldn't it be a wonderful
world for those who only too willing to take our hard earned
money? Better to be informed by a critical review to aid you my
fellow radio amateurs to making an intelligent purchasing decision
than to be sorry later on. Oh well, like Lee Iacocca said on TV, "If
you can find a better transceiver, buy it", or something like
that. Maybe there is a lot to be said about eHam's policy of
allowing chicken-hearted reviewers to log on with an Anonymous
identification and no call sign.
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