[TenTec] Wrong Product - Eagle

[Wes Attaway (N5WA)]

Mike .... Thanks for the update to all your loyal supporters.

You pretty well covered the waterfront.

Maybe the naysayers will calm down a little bit.

I am sure everyone wishes you the best as you go through all the management
decisions that are necessary. 

   -------------------
Wes Attaway (N5WA)
(318) 393-3289 - Shreveport, LA
Computer/Cellphone Forensics
AttawayForensics.com
   -------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Mike Dishop
via TenTec
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 2:28 AM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Cc: Mike Dishop
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Wrong Product - Eagle

 OK, there is complaints that I don't communicate directly with you.  Let me
see if I can actually post on the reflector correctly.  I'm afraid I work
very hard each day and don't have time to make posts and things like this so
I don't quite know how to reply to a thread, but here goes.  Something you
might keep in mind is if one of you make an ass out of yourself on a
reflector it doesn't do anything but make you look stupid. Anything I say
however will be taken out of context and distorted by some person to try to
shed a bad light on me or the company.  I have a number of people working
for me who depend on this for their livelihood. Please think about what
damage you are doing when you spread outright lies that Ten Tec or Alpha is
out of business.  We have been open and working since I purchased the
companies. Hundreds of radios have been repaired, including radios that were
piled up and unrepaired by the previous owners.  Even the backlog at Alpha
has been mostly cleared except for a few 87A's which are very difficult to
get parts for.  Alpha is producing amplifiers entirely in house now and has
nothing but satisfied owners since I assumed control of the company.  If
anyone wants a brand new 9500, I've got one sitting on the shelf waiting for
you. We are caught up on ALL amplifier back orders.  I've spent a lot of
time getting critical and long lead components back in stock. For example,
the ceramic plate choke and 160m coil form provider went out of business and
didn't tell us.  This week we are receiving brand new designed ceramic coil
forms which is about the last specialty item I've had to clear up. The good
news?  We designed it in such a way that the TEN TEC roller inductor will
now have a ceramic coil form instead of the grooved fiberglass which is the
FIRST step to making more 238C antenna tuners!  So there are HUNDREDS of
things happening behind the scenes you don't know about and frankly you
don't need to know about.  We are doing what we need to do as fast as we can
do it.  If I publish everything I'm doing then competitors will think what a
great idea and run with it.  Think it won't happen?  I can name a dozen
products it has happened on but if I do I'll just be accused of lying or
sour grapes. 
First let me thank each of you who expressed well wishes for me and Ten
Tec.  I'm sure I've alienated some of you and I apologize if I make anyone
feel bad, but frankly you have never stopped a single time to consider my
situation.  I want to address directly the do not contact me about service
for your amateur radio at Dishtronix.  First off, I answer my own telephone
unlike anyone else in the industry.  614 675 2497 is my direct line right to
my desk.  So let me ask you a question -  is My job to get Ten Tec healthy
and to get the company to a point where it can supply hundreds of radios
again?  Or should I spend my time trying to arrange a $5 dial string for
some obsolete radio sold to the three previous owners before you when I was
ten years old?  Now perhaps one phone call a day I can handle.  But how
about ten or twenty?  Especially when you want to talk to me for a half
hour?  I'm not in Tennessee. I'm in Ohio!  I have NO CLUE if they have a
dial string or not. It is very plainly stated to email them but despite the
numerous postings about it you continue to call me. When you look up the
number right there on the web it asks you to write Ten Tec but SOME of you
just can't accept this and call anyway, and wonder why I am irritated when
you ask me about a dial string.
Let me ask you the same question. How many radios can the bench tech repair
if he is on the phone with ten people a half hour each per day?
YES, TEN TEC HAS A TELEPHONE!  Do you want to know the real reason it isn't
published? THE BENCH TECHS SUGGESTED GETING RID OF THE PHONE SO THEY CAN
ACTUALLY FIX RADIOS.  There -  I've just gone ahead and said it. Now you
know.
Someone suggested I hire someone and pay them 12 dollars an hour to answer
the phone.  First off, get real.  You have forgotten the unemployment
insurance, state employers tax, federal employers tax, social security
withholding of 7.5% contribution by me. Add about 35-50 percent to that
figure and you see it is very close to 18 dollars an hour cost to me to pay
a man 12 dollars per hour.  Lets multiply that by 2080 hours in a year with
no benefits. It is close to 40 grand just to pay someone to talk to you
about service.  Now, just how many radios do you think we repair?  10 a
week?  so spend 40K for 500 radios is $80 per service call.  So instead of
paying less than $300 on an average repair not it cost $400.  Oh, that $25
dial string - now it is $125.
So you don't like my website. You don't like the grainy pictures that were
taken DIRECTLY from the RKR website.  You don't like that I don't update it.
You don't like that I don't have a professional advertising staff and a full
time webmaster... Well guess what.  ALL THAT TAKES MONEY THAT I DON"T HAVE
AND THAT YOU ARE NOT PAYING FOR.  Please make your non-charitable donation
checks out to Dishtronix, Inc and mail to PO Box 1007 Bellefontaine, OH
43311.  If 500 of you each send me a thousand dollars I can hire all these
people and get the new ham products out we are working on sooner.  All we
need is money. We have the skilled people, the technology, the machinery - 
EVERYTHING we need but money.  Just wait until you see what we have planned
for you.
Now I KNOW the above paragraph is going to really stir the pot.  There are
going to be those who are going to say why should we support you for free? 
Allow me to ask an equivalent question.  If I subsidize Ten Tec and they
loose money, perhaps say on service, am I not extending charity to those of
you who get your radios repaired and dial strings?  Have I made my point?  
Here are your alternatives in case you don't get it. I can close TEN TEC,
quit answering the phone and quit repairing radios.  If I do that I will get
the next radio out sooner because I won't have to deal with this sort of
gossip, rumors, lies, slander and negativity.  I won't have to answer the
phone about dial strings and tell you to follow the obvious established
procedure of emailing service at tentec.com.
So we have speech processors for sale, 612s whatever those are, all kinds of
microphone cords and microphones and a whole bunch of the CW version Arduino
radio in stock.  We are working on the store.  It will be just like the
Alpha store.  We have that up and running. 
Guess what else we have working in TN?  Anyone remember the missing WARC
bands in the Argonaut?  Well they are in there now.  I just need money to
buy the parts.  For every radio you can plan on needing about 100K
investment in rolling inventory of parts at all times. 
In the last year TT has gone from outsourcing all their circuit board
manufacturing to returning it all in house under my roof. We built up a new
surface mount facility using the income from the RX340 contracts we
fulfilled last year that enabled TEN TEC to stay open. Please forgive me for
doing what I have to do to keep the doors at TEN TEC open, no matter how
much you disagree with me or my methods.
What is the best website in the world and the glossiest advertising good for
if the doors close for good?  Who is going to repair your radios or supply
your dial strings then?   WHERE SHOULD I EXPEND MY LIMITED RESOURCES/  WHERE
WILL THEY DO THE MOST GOOD?
Frankly it doesn't matter what I do with Ten Tec.  If I bring out a new
transceiver and you like it you will buy it. Except of course for the people
overheard saying they would never buy a TEN TEC or an Alpha again because
the future of the company is uncertain.  Yet Rick-UFO brings out a new QRP
radio from a group nobody has ever heard of, or somebody from China puts a
cheap amplifier on eBay and you fall all over yourselves to get one because
it is cheap.  Who cares that you never heard of them.  Who cares about
service?  Witness the miracle of Baofeng and the WalMartization of America
and the decline of Western civilization and the abundant lifestyle.  It
doesn't matter how it sounds or how good it works, only that it is CHEAP.  I
wish the government would subsidize my R&D and supply me slave labor like
SOME companies benefit from. 
How many of you have tried to get a 5 or ten year old transceiver repaired
at IcoYasWood?  Or get any kind of satisfaction out of them of any kind?  I
tried for a year to get through at one of the service departments for a
certain XX-100 radio that I bought new with a problem. It never was
resolved.  I finally got a service manual through my friend who I have no
idea how he managed to purchase it.
We have repaired over FIVE HUNDRED transceivers and amplifiers this last
year.  Out of production Omni VI, Orion, Orion II, and supplied dial
strings, PTO rebuild kits, etc.  
This is my 18th year in the ham radio business.  You can't find ONE person
who says I screwed them over or did not deliver what I guaranteed I would
do.  How many times do I see on this reflector someone complains about TT
service and ten people respond that their radio was repaired promptly, the
price was reasonable and the radio works?  Granted we don't get it right
every single time. Factory techs miss things too. We are all human and prone
to error. 
If you don't like how I'm handling things quit being part of the problem and
be part of the solution.  I hear all of this about how I should do this and
that. It is real easy to say that I should do this and this and that.  Or
that "all" I need to do is put this feature and this feature from that radio
over here and BINGO, there is the new product.  Speaking as a degreed
Electrical Engineer with about 45 years experience building electronics I
can tell you quite frankly if you make a statement like that you are
telegraphing to the world loud and clear that you have no idea how things
work and that you have never commercially taken an electronic product to
market. At the performance level we expect in modern equipment NOTHING is
trivial.  These high IP3 numbers don't happen by accident.   I can tell you
that for every circuit board in my Prometheus amp there were sometimes two
dozen previous circuit boards that worked 99%.  99% is easy. It is the 1%
that kills you.
Good is not good enough if you intend to be great.  Leave the engineering
decisions to the engineers is usually a good practice.  You wouldn't want me
to operate on you if you needed a kidney transplant would you?  Wouldn't you
want a real doctor?  Maybe even a specialist?
Discussion of features and wants are welcome as long as the discussion is
constructive and positive.  If I communicate through third parties it MIGHT
be because they can say things that I can't.  I've got twenty bucks that
says at least one person is going to take what I've said out of context and
try to tear me to shreds for it.  This is exactly why I don't post in these
things.  
I would greatly appreciate those of you who when you hear some jackass
spreading lies saying TT or Alpha is out of business to set them straight.
these people are nothing but vicious trolls. It is called libel and it is a
civil offense. 
Ten Tec is making radios. Alpha is making amplifiers. I offered to bring
back the Eagle because it is a good receiver that doesn't make your ears
bleed. It sounds good and you can listen to it for hours. It gives the
production people something to do and keeps them busy until the next great
radio is ready.  Maybe it enables us to build a supply line of parts that
may be used in the next great radio. Maybe we have a strategy and a reason
for doing things the way we are.
As to the price, I tallied up what it takes for a K2, which uses the Jones
filter incidentally, to do full featured 100W 160-6 all modes and it is over
2K.  So the Eagle which is also a single conversion receiver and comes fully
assembled and is also designed and made in America, and in my opinion sounds
better is priced less.  So please criticize my wonderful competitors
equally.
Here might be a reason for buying a radio.  Those who have Eagles keep them
because they like how they sound and how they receive.  That is why you buy
one, not because of the price.  You can drive a Rolls Royce or a Beetle.
Beetles are fun if you don't mind being cold in the winter. Frankly if the
difference between $1300 and $1700 is a major decision for you and you can't
spend $400 to have what you want, well maybe you should find a hobby you can
afford.  If you really can't afford that extra $400 you better dig deep and
buy the radio that the company will still service even after it has been out
of production just like we do every other Ten Tec because everything breaks
eventually, and when it does you will be thankful you bought ours because we
will still be here.  How many 40 year old Icoms are still on the air?  
I challenge any one of you to do better. Put your money up and purchase the
company from me and you can do what you want with it. Until then I am very
sorry but somebody has to pay the bills and make the hard decisions and be
criticized for it. If you want that job you can have it. I'll come to work
for you. I'd love to have a steady paycheck and not have to deal with
negativity and vicious liars.  It isn't going to be cheap however.  Oh yes,
you know I can just give it all to the Chinese right?  They could probably
get you Eagles for $500.  What do you think that would do to the industry? 
Why would anyone want to invent anything better if you can get it for
free? Hello Baofeng, anybody listening?  If money is all you judge a radio
quality by I can fix that.  Of course you'll have to say goodbye to dial
strings and PTOs forever. 
73 de N8WFF


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