Howard, you mentioned "yellow pages". What is the website or what?
Fellows let's quit beating the dead horse-Force 12 that is.
Thanks, Dwight
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
towertalk-request@contesting.com
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 7:21 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: TowerTalk Digest, Vol 25, Issue 34
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Today's Topics:
1. Returning (hcawthra@sbcglobal.net)
2. Re: Force 12? (Bernard(wtrone))
3. Ham II rotor went south and won't come back. (Josh)
4. Returning disputed items - NOT A TOWERTALK TOPIC (K7LXC@aol.com)
5. Re: Force 12? (Jerry Keller)
6. Re: Force 12? (Jim Lux)
7. Torque balancing...try that with a lattice structure boom
(VE6JY Don Moman)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 11:34:46 -0800
From: <hcawthra@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Returning
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Message-ID: <009801c4f682$46d349d0$210110ac@CAWTHRA>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Radiomart! It seems that e-bay has brought out the scoundrels in ham radio.
Anyone remember the yellow pages? I bought quite a bit of gear through it
and never had a problem. You called the guy and talked about the gear then
decided if you wanted it or not.
Howard KA6IOB
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 15:19:35 -0600
From: "Bernard(wtrone)" <wtrone@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Force 12?
To: "WA2BPE" <wa2bpe@infoblvd.net>, "Pete Smith" <n4zr@contesting.com>
Cc: "Alan C. Zack" <k7acz@cox.net>, Towertalk@contesting.com, Bruce
Osterberg <bruceosterberg@msn.com>, k8do@mailblocks.com
Message-ID: <003701c4f690$eb5116a0$6501a8c0@DB5QP541>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Tom:
Why not consider the SteppIR?
IMO, their customer service is second to none.
73,
Bernard, WA4OEJ
----- Original Message -----
From: "WA2BPE" <wa2bpe@infoblvd.net>
To: "Pete Smith" <n4zr@contesting.com>
Cc: "Alan C. Zack" <k7acz@cox.net>; <Towertalk@contesting.com>; "Bruce
Osterberg" <bruceosterberg@msn.com>; <k8do@mailblocks.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Force 12?
> This is indeed a disconcerting topic. I am due to replace my aging KT34A
(original mfgr) and the list of candidates is shrinking. Surely F12 should
realize that "..there's trouble in
> River City..." and that bad PR can bury them regardless of product
performance. Surely they understand $$$ - or do they?
>
> Tom - wa2bpe
>
> Pete Smith wrote:
>
> > At 10:42 PM 1/7/2005, Alan C. Zack wrote:
> > >...
> > >At one time they had a gentleman named Natan who was good at answering
> > >technical questions but could not help with missing parts. Only the
> > >owner, Tom, could help with parts matters and trying to get his help
was
> > >useless. For what ever reason, Natan is no longer with F12.
> > >
> > >I would not purchase another F12 product. Mosley, Cushcraft, and
Hy-Gain
> > >still have good product lines that are affordable and who still offer
> > >customer service after the sale.
> >
> > It dismays me to see F12 developing such a bad reputation for
> > service. Natan certainly did a good job of handling customer requests
when
> > he was there, but he was on the east coast, so his hands-on access to
the
> > factory was always limited. I corresponded with him at the time he left
> > the company, and he gave no indication that it was due to F12 reasons,
but
> > rather to his interest in pursuing EMT training.
> >
> > Just for the record, I am volunteer admin for the F12 reflector
> > (force12talk@qth.com) but have no other connection with the company.
> >
> > 73, Pete N4ZR
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any
questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > TowerTalk mailing list
> > TowerTalk@contesting.com
> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any
questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 15:34:41 -0600
From: Josh <jtuel@everestkc.net>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Ham II rotor went south and won't come back.
To: Towertalk@contesting.com
Message-ID: <PJEKJPBOEHADHEELGMJBKEEPCBAA.jtuel@everestkc.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Hello all,
My Ham II rotor went south today... literally.
I was operating as usual when I release the break to turn the rotor, it
turned itself south. Now it won't move out of that position.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Josh - KB0GUS
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:06:35 -0500
From: K7LXC@aol.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Returning disputed items - NOT A TOWERTALK TOPIC
To: rodman@buffalo.edu, towertalk@contesting.com
Message-ID: <29822575.752AEDF2.0000DB5D@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Hey, guys --
TowerTalk is for discussions of tower and antenna construction questions.
PERIOD. Please refrain from these kinds of non-tower posts. Thank you.
While lots of the discussions have to do with BUYING SOMETHING, we're here
to help with the decision. Anything else is outside the scope of TT.
Thank you for your understanding.
Cheers,
Steve K7LXC
TT ADMIN
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 17:29:47 -0500
From: "Jerry Keller" <k3bz@arrl.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Force 12?
To: <Towertalk@contesting.com>
Message-ID: <008b01c4f69a$ba2dd9a0$6400a8c0@homebrew1>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
Tom....May I have the pleasure of wholeheartedly recommending the SteppIR
yagi?
http://www.steppir.com/
I am merely an extremely satisfied and happy user of the SteppIR 3L, one of
the smaller units. Not
cheap, but the best antenna for the buck I've ever had.
73, Jerry K3BZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "WA2BPE" <wa2bpe@infoblvd.net>
To: "Pete Smith" <n4zr@contesting.com>
Cc: "Alan C. Zack" <k7acz@cox.net>; <Towertalk@contesting.com>; "Bruce
Osterberg"
<bruceosterberg@msn.com>; <k8do@mailblocks.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Force 12?
> This is indeed a disconcerting topic. I am due to replace my aging KT34A
(original mfgr) and the
> list of candidates is shrinking. Surely F12 should realize that
"..there's trouble in
> River City..." and that bad PR can bury them regardless of product
performance. Surely they
> understand $$$ - or do they?
>
> Tom - wa2bpe
>
> Pete Smith wrote:
>
>> At 10:42 PM 1/7/2005, Alan C. Zack wrote:
>> >...
>> >At one time they had a gentleman named Natan who was good at answering
>> >technical questions but could not help with missing parts. Only the
>> >owner, Tom, could help with parts matters and trying to get his help was
>> >useless. For what ever reason, Natan is no longer with F12.
>> >
>> >I would not purchase another F12 product. Mosley, Cushcraft, and
Hy-Gain
>> >still have good product lines that are affordable and who still offer
>> >customer service after the sale.
>>
>> It dismays me to see F12 developing such a bad reputation for
>> service. Natan certainly did a good job of handling customer requests
when
>> he was there, but he was on the east coast, so his hands-on access to the
>> factory was always limited. I corresponded with him at the time he left
>> the company, and he gave no indication that it was due to F12 reasons,
but
>> rather to his interest in pursuing EMT training.
>>
>> Just for the record, I am volunteer admin for the F12 reflector
>> (force12talk@qth.com) but have no other connection with the company.
>>
>> 73, Pete N4ZR
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and
>> lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions and ask
for Sherman, W2FLA.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk@contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and
> lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions and ask for
Sherman, W2FLA.
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 15:23:42 -0800
From: "Jim Lux" <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Force 12?
To: "WA2BPE" <wa2bpe@infoblvd.net>
Cc: Towertalk@contesting.com
Message-ID: <001801c4f6a2$42e62390$32a8a8c0@LAPTOP152422>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
----- Original Message -----
From: "WA2BPE" <wa2bpe@infoblvd.net>
To: "Pete Smith" <n4zr@contesting.com>
Cc: "Alan C. Zack" <k7acz@cox.net>; <Towertalk@contesting.com>; "Bruce
Osterberg" <bruceosterberg@msn.com>; <k8do@mailblocks.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Force 12?
> This is indeed a disconcerting topic. I am due to replace my aging KT34A
(original mfgr) and the list of candidates is shrinking. Surely F12 should
realize that "..there's trouble in
> River City..." and that bad PR can bury them regardless of product
performance. Surely they understand $$$ - or do they?
>
> Tom - wa2bpe
>
>
Having worked for small manufacturing companies in the past, perhaps I can
shed some light, although not any on Force 12 in particular.
Many companies that sell to the ham market are selling in very small volumes
and are fairly small operations to begin with. And, the antennas might be a
sideline to a primary (but not very big) business. (Just how many antennas
of one particular model do you think a company like Force 12 sells in a
year? A dozen, perhaps?... There may be half a million licensed hams, but
very few of them buy an antenna in any particular year (especially since
they tend to last forever.. otherwise why would you get questions about
refurbishing 15 or 30 year old antennas on this list).
I worked for a company that sold, among other things, specialized fans used
primarily in the motion picture production business that cost many hundreds
of dollars. Our manufacturing department consisted of ONE person, who made
ALL the fans we sold (some dozens in a big month, typically), as well as all
of the other 3 or 4 products. Sure, if he went on vacation, the owner could
go back and try and assemble fans, but, in general, you'd be better off
waiting for him to get back. Our service department was the same person,
plus one other person, who also did deliveries, but could do basic repairs
(replace a knob that had fallen off, etc.). If we had a big manufacturing
order for another product, your fan order might sit for quite a while before
we could fill it from the factory. This is one reason why we counted on our
distributors to hold some stock, and we really, really discouraged factory
sales (to the extent that it was *always* cheaper to buy from a distributor
or retailer than the factory).
For another example, from a small high-tech company that did work mostly on
government contracts, and hence, whose cost structure, timekeeping, etc.,
was all designed for excruciating detail to pass DCAA audits. Over many
years, at times, they had a "product" of sorts that they would sell in
limited quantities (say, a few units over the period of 12-18 months), and
then we'd go onto other jobs. We weren't really a retail company, although
the owners might periodically think about it. If you were to call for help
or support on that product 5 years later, several issues would come up:
1) the person who designed that product might no longer work there, and in
any event, there's no staff assigned to support the old product.
2) the documentation might be in a box somewhere in storage, and not
particularly well organized for retrieval.
3) there is no budget for support (aka "and what charge number to I put on
my time card for this work?"). If someone had a question that could be
answered in (literally) a few minutes, it's not a problem, but if any sort
of files needed to be retrieved, faxes sent, photocopies made, etc., you'd
have to find something to charge the work to, and in a small company, there
may not be any sort of "marketing" account that you could legitmately charge
it to.
Heck, this situation arises where I work now, at JPL, when someone calls up
asking for some information on some spare parts used in some subassembly, in
some assembly, in some subsystem, for a spacecraft that was launched 15
years ago. I might have "inherited" the documentation, but I may never have
actually seen it, since it's in some document storage warehouse miles away.
I'd certainly have no idea which individual file box to retrieve of the 200
that the information might be in.
Finally, there's just the reality that in a small company, there may not be
much margin for error or unexpected events. They may have more work to do
than there is time to do it in, and may not be very good at triage. If
you've got a $50K delivery that has to go out in a month, you're behind
schedule, and there's a hefty penalty clause, you might be totally focussed
on that order, to the exclusion of other things. Often, what gets short
shrift is marketing (why a lot of small companies go out of business...
they're so busy working on today's business that they don't have time to go
get tomorrow's), but responding to enquiries and product support on old
products can also get buried in the "to do" pile. You also tend to
concentrate on your bigger customers. The ham who spent $1K a couple years
back on you isn't a very big fraction of today's business.
The cyclical nature of business takes its toll, particularly in small
companies. When there's lots of business, there's too little time available
to respond, because you're up to your rear in reptiles. When there's no
business, there's no budget or people left to answer questions, because the
remaining two or three are desparately scrounging to keep the business alive
(or have gotten a full-time job, so they can eat and have a roof over their
head).
In some ways, the ham market is sort of cursed. It's a small market,
overall, and not a particularly spendy one.(yes, hams are cheap.) There's a
lot of products out there, really good products, that came about because
someone built one for themself, found it worked well, and was convinced to
sell it to others, but the volume isn't enough, or consistent enough, to
really make a living at it. These are the folks with 2, 3, or 6 employees,
or even, the guy and his wife at the kitchen table, but basically a "labor
of love". Then, there are huge companies (like Kenwood, Yaesu, etc.) that
have enough "other" business to make the ham side finanically insigificant.
There are very few "in the middle" sorts of companies (say, able to hire
50-100 people) where they're big enough to ride through bumps and waves of
business, and have enough "slop" in the budget to accomodate casual
inquiries.
Jim, W6RMK
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 00:10:24 -0000
From: "VE6JY Don Moman" <ve6jy@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Torque balancing...try that with a lattice
structure boom
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Message-ID: <000001c4f6aa$36d023a0$44f52a40@ve6jy>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
A calculated solution to a wind balance situation becomes even more complex
when the boom is a lattice structure (tower sections) and therefore presents
a variable wind area that increases due to turbulence at higher wind speeds.
And I didn't want to use more tower sections for the sail... This was the
situation with my 4 el 80m yagi on a 76' boom. It isn't close to being wind
balanced when it is close to being weight balanced. There is about 30 feet
of tower on the reflector and about 46 feet on the other. If you're
wondering why it isn't better balanced for wind - I want to be able to reach
the feed point DE connections from the tower. My first try was to "fill"
the last 10 feet of the boom with aluminum plate. This proved to be not
nearly enough. I wound up putting about 15 sq ft of aluminum plate out
under the reflector end. Now in low winds it weather vanes up wind, in
moderate winds it is very undecided and higher winds make it point downwind,
as before. It's a lot less torque on the mast and rotor system in any case.
However since I added the 150 feet of 4.5 inch mast and mounted the rotor
(with shear pin) at the bottom, everything has become so much easier to work
on...
73 Don
VE6JY
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Jarvis" <jimjarvis@comcast.net>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 18:36
Subject: [TowerTalk] Torque balancing...agreement!
>
> We read and learn. w0un and I are not in total agreement,
> but he's a bright and reasonable guy...and it's obvious that
> the problem is communications. We're describing the elephant
> from different appendages.
>
> I'm still looking for Weber's paper...but in the course of
> googling it, I came up with a TT post on the SAME TOPIC, made
> by me, in 2002. Did we ever resolve the question of windload
> on a helix?
>
> After I read Weber's paper, John and I will chat offline...if
> any concensus develops to help the guy trying to balance the
> kt34XA, one of us (not both) will post it.
>
> THAT SAID.... I submit the following observations:
>
> * Windload calculation and torque balancing are different problems.
> * John is right, the elements for the most part cancel out. If you
> place your hose clamps exactly the same way in all locations,
> they pretty much DO cancel out.
> * 45 degrees is the worst angle to calculate windload...and that
> problem is truly gnarly...but you don't have to solve it to
> "balance" the torque.
> * Adding weight to the nose, instead of offsetting the boom is the
> smartest idea I've seen so far. It may worsen the aerodynamic
> imbalance, though.
> * Even with weight added, the array isn't symmetrical, due to the
> clean 10m director, and maybe 5% differences between reflector
> and directors.
> * The nose will need a trimtab. I used 4" x 8.5", 15' from the mast.
> It could be slid, for tuning.
>
> Best regards,
>
> N2EA
> jimjarvis@ieee.org
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any
questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
End of TowerTalk Digest, Vol 25, Issue 34
*****************************************
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
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