[CQ-Contest] More Good (customer relations) News, good News

[Richard L. King]

I have recently had some good experiences with the Ameritron customer 
support group.

A couple of months ago I bought a second Ameritron AL1500 amplifier. After 
installing the tube and power transformer (packaged separately), it came up 
and worked fine. However I noticed one oddity about the new amplifier. On 
40, 80, and 160 meters the loading control would be at zero (maximum 
capacity for the loading capacitor). My older AL1500 used less capacity for 
loading on the three low bands but it was close to the same settings for 
10, 15, and 20 meters.

I called the Ameritron Customer Support and described my problem to them 
and they said that the newer AL1500 models switched in less loading 
capacity then the older models. However, the load control should not end up 
at zero for the three low bands in spite of that and the newer AL1500 
manual agreed with what they said. The amplifier was certainly usable but I 
wasn't happy with what I perceived as not enough plate loading capacity as 
normal.

The customer support guy walked me through some checks with my capacity 
meter to see if any of the fixed caps were bad. But we just couldn't find 
anything wrong. After what I thought was a reasonable effort on my part to 
isolate the problem I finally said, "I think you should just send me a new 
RF deck". They agreed to do this without any argument whatsoever. A few 
days later the new RF deck arrived and it worked according to the 
specifications in the AL1500 manual. Ameritron also sent me a UPS sticker 
for me to return the old RF deck at no cost to me. I see this as good 
customer service.

Another Ameritron story:

Soon after replacing my AL1500 a friend brought over an AL1200 that had a 
problem. I thought since I had just been digging into my Ameritron amp, I 
was on a roll and could help my friend fix his. We found a single bad 
capacitor in his power supply bank of 8 capacitors. After determining the 
part number of the capacitor, we ordered the part from Ameritron.

However, the part arrived and the new capacitor was physically shorter, had 
more capacity, but had the same working voltage. When I called Ameritron 
back to ask about it they said, "you must have an older AL1200 because we 
can't get those capacitors anymore. We now use the newer capacitors that 
are really better anyway."

Since I couldn't use one capacitor that was of different value in the power 
supply, I priced seven more capacitors and I priced the entire capacitor 
assembly (includes eight capacitors, bleeders, circuit board, and other 
components). The entire assemble was actually cheaper then buying seven 
more capacitors. When I ordered the capacitor assembly I asked if they 
would leave one capacitor off the assembly and credit me for what I paid 
for the first capacitor I ordered. They were happy to do this and I was 
very satisfied with their help.

The only minor criticism I might have is that it would be helpful for 
Ameritron to ask for serial numbers of amplifiers when taking parts orders. 
This might allow them to identify part changes in the amplifiers and make 
sure their customers get the right parts the first time they call.

Over all, I am extremely satisfied with Ameritron Custom Service.

73, Richard

k5na at texas.net