[SBE] transmitter customer service failures

[Thomas Wojciechowski]

I've had some experience w/ Thales HF HP transmitters.  When we needed PC 
boards, we had to turn in an order at least 6 mo. in advance to allow time 
for production runs.  What is really scary is that Thales as discontinued 
the manufacture of some boards, but turned over production to independent 
contractors.  I might add the transmitters are not all that old.  As an 
American, I've always wondered why our government did not buy American.





>From: A9xw at cs.com

>Reply-To: sbe member discussion mail list <sbe at sbe.org>

>To: sbe at sbe.org, 

>fred.krampits at us.thales-bm.com,Michael.Roosa at us.thales-bm.com, 

>Rodney.Cole at thomson.net,MDrazin at tribune.com

>Subject: [SBE] transmitter customer service failures

>Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 11:46:51 EDT

>

>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

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