[SBE] transmitter customer service failures

[Bruce Doerle]

Tom,

The 'low bid'.  Why did we buy so many Marconi boxes - low bid, favor to Thatcher, American parts requirement met to name a few.  Remember Continental was on the government blacklist for a while from some unethical business with the Navy.  Thus no buys from the only American manufacturer who makes HIGH power (100kW & up) boxes.  At that time who else made them: Thomson, ABB, Marconi, Siemens, and Telfunken.  But then supoorting a buy from Thomson, Thomcast, Thales has always been a problem.  The Thomson 300kW TX in Munich was a one of a kind and there was not support.  Thomson disbanded the engineering staff from that project. Hence, trying to get support was a real trying effort if you could get them to return the calls.  That is the way I recall it.  

BTW, how is your retirement coming along?

Bruce


>>> "Thomas Wojciechowski" <tomtraveller at hotmail.com> 7/9/2007 8:35:30 PM >>>

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.