[RVRC] COMPLAINT ABOUT THE HAMFEST

[asajm at optimum.net]

Sorry that the original was blank....Here it is.
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Got this e-mail from a friend after the Hamfest....... 




In other news.......
I'd like to lodge a complaint (about one of the vendors at the hamfest).
I bought five short (3 foot) coax cables Saturday and whoever assembled them is utterly incompetent and should either be retrained or prevented from doing that job. All of the cables had clear plastic tape on them printed with the number "12," leading me to think that that was the assembler's ID. The problems are: all ten of the center pins had cold solder joints and none of the crimp ferrules were crimped. They were just slid on and heat-shrink tubing was used to hold them in place. Whoever it was did a really lousy job of that too. A trained blind monkey, or Radio Shack employee, could have done a better job. Fixing the center pin was easy, but I had to cut apart an 11 mm, six-point deep socket to make a crimping tool. To use it, I had to cut off all the heat-shrink tubing and clamp it in a vise. I only have a small hand vise at home, so I brought the cables in to work to finish the job that I should have never had to do. I know that it's Caveat Emptor in venues like that, but this was supposed to be a new, quality product. I would think the sponsors of the event would at least like to know about this. At least the cable they used was Mil-Spec RG-213/U, instead of that crappy RG8X or "TYPE" cable. The cables were $12 each too!. If I had known about the problem, I might have still bought them, because it's easier to finish a job than do the whole job, but I would have haggled over the workmanship. It's ironic that in the next row over a guy was selling six foot cables using RG-214/U for $10 each, and the workmanship was superb, or at least looks that way. And the cable he used is more expensive and better quality. Essentially it's double-shielded RG-213/U. I bought four of those cables.




Thought you guys might like to see this.
I'll see if Bob remembers the Vendor's name so none of you guys get burned, too.