[SBE] transmitter customer service failures

[A9xw at cs.com]

We had massive damage at our transmitter site on June 18th from lightning 
taking out the 12.5Kv to 480/1200A 3 phase transformer. The utility replaced the 
power vault 30 hrs later and we found everything had gone crispy from the over 
voltage. HVAC, strobes, Staco regulators, Isolatrons OVP, both transmitters 
and just about everything else not on the full isolation UPS. We only lost the 
exciter PS and a metering fuse in the Thales IOT analog, and using a 30 yr. 
old ITS exciter and some ingenuity got the analog back on air in mono, using a 
Sencore 3384 to demod the 310M stream to baseband A/V.  But the solid state DTV 
transmitter lost every fuse, power supply, several RF amps, and more. But the 
bad news was Thales had nothing in stock to fix it. We finally got them to 
send 4 power supplies from a demo unit and a few more trickled in. We managed to 
get back on with 20% power, then 50%, but still no control systems, no power 
monitoring, no replacement RF amps. The latest E-mail says their power supply 
repair tech is out for a few weeks and apparently they have no one else to fix 
them. So far no effort to get the RF amps fixed/swapped, and the computer 
boards are all on back order from their vendor. [according to a e-mail of last 
week].  When I called today, I was told no one was in the office, except a low 
level customer service person. If Digital is the future of TV, we all better 
have an extra box on hand for parts or near on line standby (make sure the mains 
are off) 

Anyone else having support problems from TX manufacturers?  

Anyone besides me remember when RCA would have a whole transmitter on site in 
an emergency in a matter of hours or a couple days and actually stocked parts 
for just about everything ever made?  

Have the manufacturers forgotten this is a TIME=CASH business? Or has 
broadcasting become unimportant with mobile technology transmitters going in by the 
dozens per week? 

Henry Ruhwiedel
WYIN