On Mon January 4 2016 7:18:40 pm Gary J FollettDukes HiFi wrote:
I, for one, applaud this policy statement.
It is amazing to me how many folks think companies like Ten Tec should
somehow pay a highly skilled technical resource to jabber for an hour
about
a problem that is well outside warranty responsibility.
Yeasu won’t do it, Icom won’t do it, neither will Elecraft of Kenwood.
They
may give you 5 minutes of their time but, after that, you need to send
your
radio in for repair.
To be fair to them, they WILL offer direction in solving a problem and I
hope Ten Tec can do so. But we all need to be conscious of the value of
the
technician or engineer’s time, and not rag chew on the line. but instead,
get directly to the issue.
If something can’t be repaired over the telephone in 15 minutes or less,
likely 6 hours won’t do it either.
Now with this new “sustainable” service model, I hope TenTec can get back
to the business of serving their patient service customers ASAP and also
produce some products that evoke coveting like the Orion did when it
first
appeared…
The Eagle is a cute portable radio with decent performance for that type
of
set. But I want an Omni 6+ without the birdies, a knob or a button for
everything, no stupid processors that will go obsolete in 3 years.
I want a Notch Filter INSIDE the AGC loop.
DSP should be a plug in upgradable daughter board so, when its parts
become
unobtanium, we can get an update board. Apple offers this in their high
end
Mac Pro… Ditto on any CPU board that would be the radio’s controller.
And why not use a display that is commonly used in a consumer product or
in
a commercial application such as a very common credit card scanner? These
have GOT to be a lot cheaper than the custom displays and, when they fail
in our fairly uncommon Ham radios, we will be able to buy junker
electronics that use the same displays and do a replacement. There is NO
logic to custom specifying a simple XY pixel type display. They all
display
the same thing and in the same way.
(I wish Toyota would do that too! $4,900 for a replacement touch screen!
INDEED!)
Gary
W0DVN
On Jan 4, 2016, at 2:13 PM, John Henry <jshenry1963@gmail.com> wrote:
The following is from the new owner of TEN-TEC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As some of you may be aware, Dishtronix has purchased the assets (but
not
the liabilities) of Ten Tec from RKR Designs. . I had desired to keep
this under wraps until Ten Tec is reorganized, but there is too much
speculation concerning the service department to continue without an
announcement of some sort.
There is a myriad of things that must be accomplished before everything
is formalized. Unfortunately these things must be done before we can
continue with jobs that were sent in for repair to RKR. At this time I
would ask people to be patient and please do not call or email me about
your repair. When we get the phone numbers transferred successfully or
new phone numbers we will post them. As we progress with the change,
someone will contact you about your repair. When service resumes we will
be contacting the repair customers.
As some of you may be aware I have been looking at all aspects of
operation of the company and restructuring operations has been
necessary.
In reviewing the service department accounts, it is apparent that some
customers use the service department to diagnose the radio and elect to
not proceed with the repair. Unfortunately this open door policy costs
the company one hour of billable time to receive, unpack, open,
diagnose,
provide an estimate and repack a radio for return to the customer.
Effective immediately, all radios including those sent in to RKR, will
incur a 140.00 minimum charge to look at a radio, even if it is not
repaired. Service time is 125 per hour with the average repair
requiring
from one to two hours. This means you can expect to pay at least 265.00
plus parts and return shipping for any repair.
For customers who sent radios in to RKR which were not repaired, who
object to these terms, we will return your unit to you at your expense.
A second problem in the service department is with the time technicians
spend on the telephone that quite often ends up having nothing to do
with
the Ten Tec product but is some other station deficiency. The problem
here is Ten Tec is not compensated for that time, yet Ten Tec pays wages
to the technician. When the service department resumes operation, Ten
Tec
will charge the customer for any telephone call or email that consumes
more than five minutes of technician time. That time will be billed in
quarter hour increments at the prevailing service rate.
I am fully committed to bring Ten Tec back to a sustainable state. This
will take some time. Please give us time to finalize these plans since
there are so many business related issues to get through. We will
definitely need to rely on you as customers to help continue the Ten
Tec tradition of
innovative product and cutting edge technology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Given the content of the new owners announcement above, I (John Henry)
also request that if you can wait a while for your product to get
serviced in the Ten Tec service department, please let them alone until
they get back with you as he described above. If you absolutely have to
have your unit back now, then the service@tentec.com email address is
still working, and will continue to work. The phones are in transition,
so I doubt you will be able to call and get an answer for a while. once
phones are set up, the numbers will be announced. Once the website is
ready, everything will be on it. Remember, if going to tentec.com takes
you to rkrdesignsllc.com, then the website transition has not completed
yet.
Given the nature of this announcement, and it will almost positively
bring out more questions, again, please be patient. The new owner is
working through a lot of business issues, and I myself work a full time
day job and consult into the evening, so, answers may be few and far
between. Though this announcement is going out to a lot of venues, I
will
attempt to monitor
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ten_tec_radio_net/conversations/messa
ges
73, KI4JPL
John Henry
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