Huh. Of six different pieces of TT equipment, only one ever needed repair.
That was due to an early life (warranty) fail of a bias transistor, and I
did the service with super help from TT guys. Two of the units were HF amps
and neither of them had any trouble (other than a 3-500Z grid that fell into
a cathode after years of service, much of it in RTTY mode.) Since the
majority of folks who post on forums tend to be those with a gripe, I
thought I'd post my experience which is the opposite. By contrast, I've
sent a VHF rig back to Yaesu three times without a resolution of a problem,
and finally gave up. Also had problems with an ICOM IC-765 that was my
first "big rig". So, I find the negative criticism of TT to be misplaced,
in my experience....
73, Duane
Duane Calvin, AC5AA
Austin, Texas
www.ac5aa.com
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Garey Barrell
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 10:06 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Drakelist] Ten-Tec and Drake Compared
roncasa wrote:
> Garey Barrell wrote:
>>
>>
>> One thing about Ten-Tec gear. The 'word' in the Ham community was that,
'The good news is that
>> Ten-Tec has an outstanding service department, with friendly, helpful
techs readily available.
>> They very often will ship a replacement board on the promise that you
would send back the
>> defective one.' 'The bad news is, you are almost certainly going to NEED
that outstanding
>> service department!'
>>
>
> Let's be fair ....
> the same is true for other manufacturers of ham radio products regarding
reliability ....
>
> The difference here is that you could almost repair TT radio at home.
> You could be back on the air in no time.
> On the other hand, you may have to send other radio brands for service and
wait weeks.
>
Ron -
Perhaps. All I can say is that in 50 years of using Drake equipment, only
twice did I need to
purchase a unique part from Drake to repair a radio. Other minor repairs
were required over the
years, but all were accomplished with locally available resistors and/or
capacitors, with an
occasional diode or transistor thrown in.
I ran three R-4A/B setups for almost three years, 24/7 in autostart RTTY
service with only one
'failure', and open filament in a 12BY7. Yes, a few PA tubes had to be
replaced as the transmitters
were run at full power, with keydown periods of up to 30 minutes.
By contrast, it seemed like everyone I knew who had Ten-Tec equipment was
often praising their
'excellent service support'. :-)
73, Garey - K4OAH
Glen Allen, VA
Drake 2-B, 2-C/2-NT, 4-A, 4-B, C-Line
and TR-4/C Service Supplement CDs
<www.k4oah.com>
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