View Full Version : New AES catalogue (or, "catalog" to you whippersnappers) today...
W3MIV
10-04-2010, 02:02 PM
Alpha 9500 :yum: on the cover... gorgeous rig, but I confess I would just as soon keep the AL80B I rarely use and have the extra $6500 to put in other gear.
Also, bound in with the AES, a new MFJ catalog. This time, it seems, ol' Martin sprang for coated stock -- wowie, an upgrade that really makes his catalog a lot nicer. TU, MFJ.
Not in the mocket for anything, but it is always kinda like Christmas when new catalog comes in the mail stuffed to the gills with goodies I don't need but would love to have. :yes:
Towers, man. I need four or five of those Texas Towers hundred-footers. And that big ol' tribander beam and that two-meter yagi and that IC-7800, too. And, yes, a Alpha 9500 as well.
(My AES catalog(ue) came today, too. Can you tell?)
KG4CGC
10-04-2010, 02:46 PM
I am surprised, TRULY surprised that outfits like AES and HRO have not gotten in to the specialized real estate market for retiring hams and other hams with more time and money.
W3MIV
10-04-2010, 03:14 PM
I am surprised, TRULY surprised that outfits like AES and HRO have not gotten in to the specialized real estate market for retiring hams and other hams with more time and money.
Ah, yes, I can see it now. Ham City, Florida, located on the edge of the Everglades. (Inside Edge, no doubt.) Plenty of salt marsh to enhance your ground andgive you (and your neighbors) more DX for your buck. Ten thousand transceivers; four thousand amplifiers, 7,543,000 feet of fourteen gauge wire festooning every tree in the area; three thousand towers slowly subsiding in marshy soil. Alligators that glow in the dark, but nary a dog or a cat anywhere to be seen...
Buy now! We're holding your double-wide now, and if you act fast we'll through in wall-to-wall astroturf and an above-ground pool (the in-grounds tend to float out).
KG4CGC
10-04-2010, 03:24 PM
Ah, yes, I can see it now. Ham City, Florida, located on the edge of the Everglades. (Inside Edge, no doubt.) Plenty of salt marsh to enhance your ground andgive you (and your neighbors) more DX for your buck. Ten thousand transceivers; four thousand amplifiers, 7,543,000 feet of fourteen gauge wire festooning every tree in the area; three thousand towers slowly subsiding in marshy soil. Alligators that glow in the dark, but nary a dog or a cat anywhere to be seen...
Buy now! We're holding your double-wide now, and if you act fast we'll through in wall-to-wall astroturf and an above-ground pool (the in-grounds tend to float out).
Yes. I thought of it first. You didn't. Neenur!
...Also, bound in with the AES, a new MFJ catalog.
This time, it seems, ol' Martin sprang for coated stock --
wowie, an upgrade that really makes his catalog a lot nicer. TU, MFJ...
Personally, I tend to look at it the other way. I'm much more impressed with a
company that uses less resources to print their hard copy catalogs compared to
one that tries to "wow" me with "purty pitchurs".
Same with NOT receiving catalogs. Some companies simply cannot delete me
from their hard copy mail list. I simply refuse to buy from them.
Just one of those things I do.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
www.n0eq.com
KG4CGC
10-04-2010, 04:07 PM
Just one of those things I do.
Yeah, but you have bananas in your ears.
Yeah, but you have bananas in your ears.
"WHAT??"
"WHAT??"
What, indeed - seems that Lumpy's fabled avatar has been (gasp!) disappeared!
Perhaps the dingo ate my bananas.
W3MIV
10-04-2010, 05:24 PM
Yes. I thought of it first. You didn't. Neenur!
I am open to offers of partnerships. My mother-in-law can handle any gators we might meet doing a survey. Also, I have a canoe.
Personally, I tend to look at it the other way. I'm much more impressed with a
company that uses less resources to print their hard copy catalogs compared to
one that tries to "wow" me with "purty pitchurs".
I daresay that Martin Jue has little or nothing that I have not already seen, if not already bought; I have yet to audit the contents in sufficient detail to note what may be new and what may be gone. While lots of people rail against MFJ (and its growing stable of enterprises), I have always had good luck with his gear. Only oddity I have yet to encounter over the years was a scratching and grinding noise (and feel) in the knob of the antenna cap on a 989D tuner. Closer inspection revealed a cabinet screw stuck betwixt that knob and the cabinet; all of the requisite enclosure fastenings, however, were tightly in place on my unit. If you know of anyone with a 898D that is missing a cabinet screw, let me know and I will send him/her one.
KC2UGV
10-04-2010, 07:11 PM
Yeah, but you have bananas in your ears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAJ9I7AIAs
n6hcm
10-05-2010, 12:56 AM
i'd prefer that they spend less on printed catalogues that they send to my recycle bin and spend more on making their websites informative and useful. i've bought from aes but not because i had their dead tree thing. sadly, their website is suboptimal (you don't even see a search box above the fold on their top page!)
I got my catalog-ue saturday as well, i still like getting them and im happy they got out of the toy/telescope biz. We have an AES store in town so i can stop in and see Luke, etc...but i dont think there is another company that generates more love/hate than MFJ. I have an old 949E tuner, sure the inductor knob fell off years ago, and the meter lamp fried out after 5 minutes...but that thing can tune up a dead cow. Some folks swear by the stuff, others outwardly revile Martin Jue's products. Ive owned numerous MFJ and MFJ sponsored products, and aside from some quality issues, it did its job and i had no problems with it. Easy to get under the hood too. Basically, its just like Russian military equipment.
...um...with all due respect, of course, but am i the only one who thinks Charity, the Orlando manager, is cute?
W3MIV
10-05-2010, 07:06 AM
Ameritron has a nice, new solid-state leenyar of 1200 watts.
KG4CGC
10-05-2010, 07:40 AM
Speaking of poorly managed and designed websites, HRO is supreme suckage.
W3MIV
10-05-2010, 09:43 AM
Over the years, I have found GigaParts very good overall. Workable website. Good service and very fast ship. Bought my 756P3 from them (free PS), as well as the AL80B.
There used to be a really good, fun ham shop in Newcastle, DE, some twenty-five or so years back (but then, there were LOTS of fun ham shops twenty-five or more years back, even in Maryland). I drove up to the HRO in Newcastle a couple of times, but the travel was not worth the trouble. Disappointing store; disappointing stock. Prices are generally close to the same everywhere.
KG4CGC
10-05-2010, 09:47 AM
HRO Atlanta is stuck in 1975.
W3MIV
10-05-2010, 09:55 AM
HRO Atlanta is stuck in 1975.
Not sure how you mean that. In many ways, except for the CB craze (and having to walk thirty-eight miles to and from the FCC testing office in a raging blizzard, which Glenn Zook and others assured me was the case), I wish we were back in 1975! Lots of amateur retail outlets, filled with lots of fun folks; Heathkit in full swing; I think both Lafayette and Allied were still in business; even Radio Shack was a way different operation.
Speaking of poorly managed and designed websites, HRO is supreme suckage.
Yeah, it's definitely a low-pressure area on the Web.
Luckily, we have a well-run HRO store here in town that's staffed by a group of knowledgeable and friendly guys. I'll often buy stuff from them even if I can get it a little cheaper online just because it's nice having them around when I need something in a hurry.
KG4CGC
10-05-2010, 10:25 AM
My 1975 comment, store, building, smell.
As for the market availability of having a place (several many) to walk into to look at and touch, I miss that too.
Over the years, I have found GigaParts very good overall. Workable website. Good service and very fast ship...
Just goes to show ya' how different people perceive "good service".
I bought a coax switch from GigaParts. I wasn't happy at all with
the quality of the item. I wrote to them and asked how to return it.
They replied that I could send the item to them and then they would
inspect it to see if they thought there were quality issues.
I wasn't interested in THEIR opinion of the quality, I simply didn't like it.
Any company with good customer service will accept an unused item
for any reason at all; poor opinion of the part, buyer remorse, wrong
shade of blue, whatever.
They were a little too proud of their merchandise. I contacted the
manufacturer who issued me an immediate payment for the item,
and a sincere apology. No return necessary.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)
KC2UGV
10-05-2010, 11:40 AM
My 1975 comment, store, building, smell.
As for the market availability of having a place (several many) to walk into to look at and touch, I miss that too.
I hear ya there. The one ham radio place in my area (I am lucky enough to have one), the only redeeming quality is the group of smart hams there. Their website is shite though. I offered to re-design it, adding in a cart feature and the like. Even offered a %50 break from what my usual charge would be, just because they are a ham radio site.
90% of their inventory isn't online. From their website, you would think they are a CB chop shop, with some ham and business band stuff tossed in just for good measure. The reality is very different however.
KG4CGC
10-05-2010, 11:54 AM
I hear ya there. The one ham radio place in my area (I am lucky enough to have one), the only redeeming quality is the group of smart hams there. Their website is shite though. I offered to re-design it, adding in a cart feature and the like. Even offered a %50 break from what my usual charge would be, just because they are a ham radio site.
90% of their inventory isn't online. From their website, you would think they are a CB chop shop, with some ham and business band stuff tossed in just for good measure. The reality is very different however.
Similar story here. They think they're really keen by advertising on CL.
Over the years, I have found GigaParts very good overall. Workable website. Good service and very fast ship. Bought my 756P3 from them (free PS), as well as the AL80B.
There used to be a really good, fun ham shop in Newcastle, DE, some twenty-five or so years back (but then, there were LOTS of fun ham shops twenty-five or more years back, even in Maryland). I drove up to the HRO in Newcastle a couple of times, but the travel was not worth the trouble. Disappointing store; disappointing stock. Prices are generally close to the same everywhere.
Local ham stores are disappearing, one by one.
The one in DE I miss is the old EGE. Dealt with them a lot when I worked at Westech (also long defunct). The EGE stores were bought out by HRO, and were never the same afterwards.
Not sure how you mean that. In many ways, except for the CB craze (and having to walk thirty-eight miles to and from the FCC testing office in a raging blizzard, which Glenn Zook and others assured me was the case), I wish we were back in 1975! Lots of amateur retail outlets, filled with lots of fun folks; Heathkit in full swing; I think both Lafayette and Allied were still in business; even Radio Shack was a way different operation.
Lafayette was. They didn't meet their demise until much later, after the CB craze abated.
I still have the Lafayette SW receiver I bought as an SWL circa 1971... still works, too. Looking back, I know now it was the wrong radio for a budding ham to buy (GC tune only and no BFO), but my father insisted to me that the salesman knew what he was selling me. Either the salesman saw a kid as a sucker, or (more likely) my dad thought I had no long term interest in radio and didn't want me to waste a lot of money, so he went with the cheaper rig. So it goes.
n6hcm
10-06-2010, 04:03 AM
I wasn't interested in THEIR opinion of the quality, I simply didn't like it.
Any company with good customer service will accept an unused item
for any reason at all; poor opinion of the part, buyer remorse, wrong
shade of blue, whatever.
good luck with that. ham radio retailers != nordstrom's. this drives up the cost of stuff for everyone and puts the merchant at (modest, imho) risk since they then have to return the item to the manufacturer and hope to get credit for it. when folks are as price conscious as they are this becomes a practice that's hard to justify.
KC2UGV
10-06-2010, 06:23 AM
Similar story here. They think they're really keen by advertising on CL.
Seems like you and I are talking about the same place :)
KG4CGC
10-06-2010, 11:14 AM
Seems like you and I are talking about the same place :)
This one is in Towneville. Yep, Towneville LOL!
W2NAP
10-07-2010, 03:06 PM
...um...with all due respect, of course, but am i the only one who thinks Charity, the Orlando manager, is cute?
brb moving to orlando
[return something because you simply don't like it]
...good luck with that. ham radio retailers != nordstrom's. this drives up the cost of stuff for everyone and puts the merchant at (modest, imho) risk since they then have to return the item to the manufacturer and hope to get credit for it. when folks are as price conscious as they are this becomes a practice that's hard to justify.
They don't have to return something to the manufacturer if the customer simply doesn't like the color or the perceived quality. And if it IS a defective product, then they do indeed need to deal with the manufacturer, not just leave it in the hands of the consumer and say "no, sorry". Besides, the option is I can have my CC vendor reverse the charge, then the retailer will be out the total of the income. I can also get a refund from the manufacturer, bypassing the retailer, which is what I did in this case.
In both cases, the retailer loses because not only will I no longer spend money there, I'll come on a forum like this one and share my negative experience.
It's all just something retailers have to figure out how to deal with. And the ones that survive do figure out how to deal with it. Just another cost of doing business. Still way, way less expensive than keeping a physical store front open for me to physically walk in, examine the color of the widget, then deciding not to buy it.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)
n6hcm
10-12-2010, 03:36 AM
They don't have to return something to the manufacturer if the customer simply doesn't like the color or the perceived quality.
they can't sell it as new, either, since it isn't.
getting a refund from the manufacturer is lucky at best--most warranties don't say anything about cash refunds. that you were able to get it this time was nice, but i wouldn't expect that as a matter of course.
they can't sell it as new, either, since it isn't.
getting a refund from the manufacturer is lucky at best--most warranties don't say anything about cash refunds. that you were able to get it this time was nice, but i wouldn't expect that as a matter of course.
Sure they can sell it new. Happens all the time with all kinds of products. It hasn't been
used, it simply wasn't what the buyer expected. Had nothing at all to do with
warranty. It's no different than me going to HRO, picking up a widget and then
setting it back down because I didn't like the looks of it.
Are you of the opinion that once a retailer sells something, if the buyer doesn't like it, that buyer is SOL?
I'm certainly not. I can take my receipt back to the grocery store if I didn't like the taste of the
bananas and they'll give me a refund. I can take my/send my clothing/tools/food/blow up dolls back
to whoever sells it to me and get a refund.
Apparently GigaParts didn't feel like I automatically had that right. So, instead of dicking
around with their dickaround attitude, I simply bypassed
them and got the refund via another channel. No matter which part of the seller chain
balks at the idea of a refund, they will always lose. A 5 min phone call to your credit
card vendor will have a refund in your account immediately.
And again, the idea of a vendor saying "Well, we'll maybe consider giving you
some customer service" and then getting that practice discussed on forums
like this one, is clearly much more damaging to them than simply doing the right
thing in the first place.
But it sounds as though you may not consider that "the right thing".
Ya sell something, ya stand behind it.
Ya don't, ya lose.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)
n6hcm
10-14-2010, 02:45 AM
Sure they can sell it new. Happens all the time with all kinds of products.
they sell it as "open box" most of the time ... at a discount. the only merchant i know that actively does this (takes customer returns, rewraps them in shrinkwrap and sells them as new) is fry's, and that's why a lot of people won't buy anything other than low-value goods there. gigaparts' returns policy is pretty clear here (http://www.gigaparts.com/radiowarranty.php) and i don't see that you had a valid point
Are you of the opinion that once a retailer sells something, if the buyer doesn't like it, that buyer is SOL?
i'm of the opinion that the buyer should rtfm and understand the merchant's return policy before you putting money on the table. credit card firms are not so quick to charge back to the seller anymore (they're sure to grant a temporary credit while they "investigate") ... but those refunds are hardly automatic unless it is the card's policy to do that (amex has some cards like this--if the merchant won't accept the return of the goods through a certain period they'll take it back and grant the credit).
and, honestly, i think you're nuts to expect anything that resembles customer service from an internet vendor. for the most part, these are sellers we use because there's some advantage to buying this way (often sales tax avoidance, sometimes pricing, occasionally customer service) ...
they sell it as "open box" most of the time ... at a discount. the only merchant i know that actively does this (takes customer returns, rewraps them in shrinkwrap and sells them as new) is fry's...
Oh nonsense. Sears, JC Penny, Albertson's/Ralph's/Kroger's Grocery store, Autozone, Rat Shack, Discount Tire, Harbor Freight, every store I have ever shopped at, physical or internet/mail-order, takes unused items back and resells them as new.
If YOU have some kind of failure expectation from retailers that's your problem. I don't. I don't believe, and the law and manufacturer/vendor/bank policies agree, that the consumer isn't the one that bears the burdon of the transaction.
Not sure why you're so hell bent on being the victim here.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)
W3MIV
10-14-2010, 04:14 PM
Hardly seems worth an argument. Every retailer I have ever dealt with sells returns as "open-box" merchandise; if there was something wrong with the item and it has been repaired, it must be sold as "reconditioned" or "refurbished." Once a customer has opened the box -- even because he or she did not like the color -- it may no longer be sold as "new." Many states have laws governing this.
Speaking of poorly managed and designed websites, HRO is supreme suckage.
Have you checked recently? :whistle:
KG4CGC
10-14-2010, 06:03 PM
Have you checked recently? :whistle:
Hey! How 'bout that! And I can see what $1800 will buy.
n6hcm
10-16-2010, 08:03 AM
Hardly seems worth an argument. Every retailer I have ever dealt with sells returns as "open-box" merchandise; if there was something wrong with the item and it has been repaired, it must be sold as "reconditioned" or "refurbished." Once a customer has opened the box -- even because he or she did not like the color -- it may no longer be sold as "new." Many states have laws governing this.
exactly. it is exactly these sorts of policies that have gotten me great deals on stuff. if i'm buying for my own use, the item has all the right parts that i care about and the full factory warranty applies then i'm in.
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