[Elecraft] Unplugging the radio to protect it

[Bob McGraw - K4TAX]

Having done warranty work for Kenwood, both on commercial and amateur 
products, they are very "fussy" about warranty policy.  From experience, 
every "I" and every "T" must be dotted and crossed, otherwise they most 
likely will reject a warranty claim.  Now, there are others, such as 
myself, being independent dealers or service providers that can make 
individual exceptions to the practice/rule and in effect slide things 
under the wire.

Yes, from my take, the amateur market is a a very small part of their 
business.   In other words, so small that if it went away, someone would 
likely do without lunch for one day...........that's all.

Being retired, I no longer do any service work for any JA company or 
organization.  In most cases, I have a "bad taste in my mouth" for their 
business practice.  And to close, I spent 15 years of my professional 
career working in upper management for a major JA company.

If one's system is properly designed and installed and maintained, there 
is no valid reason to disconnect anything, anytime.

73
Bob, K4TAX

On 10/8/2015 10:10 AM, Bayard Coolidge, N1HO wrote:
> No, I don't disconnect *every cable, usually just the antenna coax as itenters the shack (which, in NC, is in the basement and a coax feed-throughcomes through a concrete block and brick wall, and the disconnect pointis at the wall, 4-5m from the equipment). All equipment (except handhelds)is properly grounded, as discussed thoroughly on this list recently, and fused.
> I'm wondering if this "policy" of Kenwood's applies just to their amateurradio market or to all of their two-way radio market, and if it's spelled out intheir warranty verbiage, or are they hiding behind the skirts of "we'll use OURdiscretion in deciding whether to fix something under warranty or not". Frankly,I think it's hilarious to think they'd expect boaters, emergency services personnel,much less small business owners, farmers, construction workers, and the like,to disconnect every cable on their equipment when not in use.
>  From what I've seen, Amateur Radio is but a small segment of their overallbusiness, even just their two-way radio business, never mind consumerelectronics, etc. OTOH, it also sounds like they have a particular design issuethat they need to address so as to preserve what's left of their reputation.
> Just my 20 millidollars' worth,
> N1HO