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

[David Gilbert <xdavid@cis-broadband.com>]

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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