Same here, never had to send any of my present or past Ten Tec's back nor
have I had to consult with them concerning service. Present station is the
original Orion, early Omni 6+, Titan amp with 1998 date code tubes and a
Centurion 3-500Z amp. Having a "friend" who had bad luck with TT service
dept is like all the reviews on Eham who have the same story. I will
mention a local ham who had to send his Icom 7800 back to Icom twice for
final amp failures. I have had two failures with an Icom 703, but both were
my fault for using it to check resonance with antennas instead of digging
out the MFJ-259, so we all have had good and bad experiences with various
gear. Let's get back to the Drake gear, especially since it's been years
since you could deal with them for service. I like to think as long as parts
for all the vintage gear is available, one will continue to enjoy keeping
them on the air.
Robb NØRU
-----Original Message-----
From: Duane Calvin
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 7:59 AM
To: [email protected] ; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Drakelist] Ten-Tec and Drake Compared
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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