Bravo Mike!!!!!!!
Regards
Michael K1PEV
Sent from my iPad
> On Feb 21, 2017, at 3:29 AM, Mike Dishop via TenTec <tentec@contesting.com>
> wrote:
>
> 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@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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