[TenTec] TEN-TEC Announcement January 4, 2016

Mon Jan 4 20:18:40 EST 2016

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 at 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 at 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/messages
> 
> 
> 
> 73, KI4JPL
> 
> John Henry
> _______________________________________________
> TenTec mailing list
> TenTec at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec