[1000mp] Warranty Service -- a report from the front

[B. Joseph Giacobello]

Actually, I've had a lot of interaction with both John Lynn and Andy Ormonde and
my experiences have been favorable.  I believe John is now the service manager
and Andy may be the chief technician, but I'm not sure.  I think there may have
been a personnel shake-up about a year ago, because Albert Culupcupan was the
service manager and he is mysteriously absent now.

I had a seemingly intractable problem with my MP.  The SWR would randomly and
unpredictably go haywire, with or without the tuner engaged, whenever feeding my
amps (30S1, Viking Thunderbolt, Heath HA-14) usually from 10 through 15 meters.
I was firmly convinced the problem was related to the infamous 15 meter SWR
problem that the early vintage MP's were prone to, because my TS850S backup rig
had no problems with any of these amps.

Yaesu's service department and, especially, Andy, worked on my unit several
times at no charge but were unable to solve the problem.  They could never
reproduce the problem in their shop.  I actually had to provide them with a
video tape of the unit misbehaving in order to convince them that I wasn't
imagining it.  Finally, Andy in desperation loaded up my MP with ferrite because
he thought the problem had to be RFI and/or problems associated with the input
characteristics of my amps.  I was still unbelieving because of the unlikelihood
of all three amps producing the same behavior and the fact that the 850S was
trouble-free.  Sure enough, after getting the MP back on the air from Andy's
last attempt to correct the problem, I observed the same erratic SWR behavior.

Last fall I replaced the 30S1 and Thunderbolt with TenTec Titans.  I haven't
seen the problem since.  Apparently, the MP has a sensitivity to some kinds of
loads that do not faze (You should pardon the choice of terms here.) the 850.
However, the bottom line is that John and Andy went the extra mile for me.

73, Joe

Robert Shohet wrote:

> > Hi Bob -- It *is* a strange operation, considering how important MPs and
> > Mark 5s, and service in general,  are to their reputation.
>
> Andy identified  himself as Service Center Supervisor (a supervisor or the
> supervisor, who
> > knows?) in a recent e-mail, but he doesn't strike me as much of a
> > grown-up.
>
> He isn't!  He doesn't return phone calls and I have found that whatever he
> says often turns out NOT to be accurate as far as service times, pricing,
> etc.  HOWEVER, once you do get him on the phone he IS helpful at diagnosing
> problems and suggesting solutions.
>
> I've always had pleasant and informative dealings with Jerry
> > Darby,
>
> So were mine until the finger-pointing episode.
>
> while my dealings with Chip Margelli have been indifferent to
> > unresponsive.
>
> Good description!
>
> I don't know who John Lynn is or where he fits -- do you?
>
> I don't what Andy or Jerry's title is,  but John is the guy who tells people
> what to do and John IS responsive - John is the head of the service dept.
> My experiences with him are that he DOES return phone calls, he DOES
> follow-up and he generally does what he says he is going to do.
>
> He is quite busy but he really does seem to try to be responsive and to help
> get things done.
>
> Good luck!
>
> 73
>
> Bob KQ2M
>
> > I'm going to give this current thing a week and then call them again.
> I'll
> > keep Lynn's extension in mind in case the front door proves equally
> > frustrating next time...
> >
> > 73, Pete N4ZR
> >
> > Check out the World HF
> > Contest Station Database at
> > www.pvrc.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > List Moderator: Richard Lubash N1VXW
> > 1000mp mailing list
> > 1000mp@mailman.qth.net
> > To Change Options or Unsubscribe:
> > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/1000mp
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> List Moderator: Richard Lubash N1VXW
> 1000mp mailing list
> 1000mp@mailman.qth.net
> To Change Options or Unsubscribe:
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/1000mp


--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/mixed
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/x-vcard
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTMLor had an attachment. Attachments are not allowed Please post in Plain-Text only---