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Re: [TowerTalk] Poor eHam reviews of the AV 480

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Poor eHam reviews of the AV 480
From: W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu@w0mu.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 22:37:32 -0600
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
We sell lots of stuff on eBay and we offer a 14 day money back guarantee on everything. A buyer can ding us without even bothering to contact us about a problem. A buyer can say great seller, and give a great written comment and then ding the seller on the starts which the seller cannot address. Reviews from anywhere can be useful but should not be relied on completely. At least eBay requires you to buy something to leave feedback. Leaving a review on a product you don't own is pretty low.

Mike W0MU

On 4/9/2014 10:12 PM, David Gilbert wrote:

A couple of years ago I scanned through roughly 2,000 eHam reviews on a wide variety of products to see how people came up with their score. What I found was surprising:

* reviewers gave scores of 4 or 5 if either a product performed well .... or .... if the manufacturer was earnest in addressing poor performance, even if the effort fell short.

* many products were given a 4 or a 5 without the slightest quantitative judgement. If the product merely functioned it got a good score.

* by far, the majority of 0's and 1's were given for poor customer service (unanswered phone calls, ignored emails, perceived lack of sympathy, etc). Relatively good performing products often ended up with middle of the road average numerical ratings due to bad service.

The net result is that as a product performance rating the eHam reviews are virtually useless. The best I can say about the reviews is that if you take the trouble to read each review carefully you might ... might ... come across one that was well considered.

73,
Dave   AB7E



On 4/9/2014 8:47 PM, EZ Rhino wrote:
I've always thought the implementation of reviews on eHam could stand a revision.

First of all, "reviews" by people who admit they do not own the product in question have no place being there and should be removed (I have actually read some by people who admit they don't own the product in question! Don't you have anything better to do?). The same for anonymous reviews.

Next, I would like to see a way for the manufacturers to respond to reviews. This should be limited in length and not allowed to become an argument or personal attacks. This can do one of two things: Either it will allow the manufacturer to shine in the way they handle the situation, or it will make them look worse, all in the way it is handled. (The phrase "give enough rope to hang yourself" comes to mind).

Last, I wonder if the 1-5 score could be broken down a bit, like adding a score for customer service, product quality, and performance, for instance.

This requires some input from someone to manage, which I imagine is one reason why nothing is done over there. I am certain there are plenty of people who would volunteer to watch categories of products and do the managing, though.

Chris
KF7P







On Apr 9, 2014, at 18:19 , Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:


How do we over ride the poor reviews from hams who probably have no
idea of how to set up a vertical?
With only three reviews, the AV-680 suffers because of one bad review
for an issue (MFJ/Hy-Gain quality control) that has no bearing on the
antenna's performance.

I'd suggest looking at the reviews for the AV-640, AV-620, CushCraft
R9, R8, R7, R5, R6000 and R7000 all of which are essentially the same
antenna with different frequency coverage.  While this class of OCF
verticals is not going to outperform a small beam at 40 or 50 feet on
the higher bands or a full size vertical with a mile of wire in the
ground on 80 and 40, it is a well though out design that does make
contacts ... an old beat-up R5 that I dragged around the country for
20 years is responsible for a large part of making DXCC honor roll
and hitting 2500 on DXCC Challenge.  In all that time I've never had
an amplifier or antennas other than the R5 (or R7 and R6000) and a
low (40' in the trees) 160/80/40 trapped inverted V.

73,

   ... Joe, W4TV


On 4/9/2014 7:19 PM, David Thompson wrote:
I tried to convince Ray W5EW to replace his 6BTV vertical with a Hy-Gain
AV-480 but the reviews on eHam were so bad he has decided not to spend
the money.  The 6BTV has 30 radials and does well in the RTTY Contests
he enters running low power.

How do we over ride the poor reviews from hams who probably have no idea
of how to set up a vertical?

73 Dave K4JRB

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