5 kw FM Transmitter Recommendation

[OKCRadioGuy]

Agreed RF guy.

I truely hope some people at that company wake up and understand that they are running off people in droves. Quite honestly I really think the majority of their sales these days are from bids where the lowest bidder wins it or from unknowing owners/managers that just think they are getting a 'deal' on a major brand transmitter. Truth is they'd be better off to call Armstrong or Energy Onix than Harris if they aren't going to do the RIGHT thing and get a Nautel or CE (for higher powered tube stuff). At least they wouldn't be getting ripped off twice. (premium transmitter prices minus 15 percent and then preditory parts prices)

 

[136kgb]

If you are thinking of an Armstrong, stop that ! I had one in Texas and it was terrible. The switches were garbage I had to replace it. Energy Onix are in the same toilet as an Armstrong, the guy is making them from spare parts in his garage it looks like. Buy a nice solid state Nautel. If you want used go get an RCA BTF-5E they are rugged easy to repair, and the parts are pretty available and the boxes are usually cheap or free. I had a McMartin identical to the one you have and I couldn't wait to put it in the landfill!

 

[TVJunkie12]

If you are thinking of an Armstrong, stop that ! I had one in Texas and it was terrible. The switches were garbage I had to replace it.

What kind of other problems did you have than switches? How old was the unit? I'd love to advise the station I contract for to get a Nautel but that may be too pricey for their budget. We have a Harris FM5K1 (with no backup transmitter) that has been solid and the station owner would be more likely to pay top dollar for Harris-which I am strongly advising him not to do-just because that is what he knows. I've been telling him about Nautel but he doesn't know anyone who is using one and that makes it a little tougher sell. At least he's heard of BE but then there are horror stories about them too.

 

[136kgb]

The Armstrong's switch problems were all of the controls were cheap, but worse than that the interlock switches were going out like once a month and knocking the station off the air. I had to bypass all of them against my better judgement. I bypased them because I was driving literally 5 hours each way to fix the station and it got old after the third time of the same problem. The Nautel is a great box we have one here in San Diego for one of our digital signals. The bad thing with the Nautel is the digital exciter software is not rock solid they need to work on it some more, but if you are doing analog only its GREAT! The Harris is just ok the Z10/Z16s go through power supply modules on a semi regular basis. Does Continental make a 5KW FM still? get it ! Too bad RCA is gone that is what I would buy if they were still making transmitters.

RCA All The Way!

 

[GWOOD]

The feedback about Harris posted here and in PM’s that I’ve received are most welcomed. I do realize that these are not personal attacks on me or the over 16,000 Harris employees working worldwide. I have met many here in person including some of you who choose not to identify themselves.

I too have paid my dues in the trenches like you with 20+ years in radio engineering. I’ve worked on many product brands and have yet to find a company that has built the perfect box. It would be unprofessional of me to debate in this forum the pros and cons of companies that Harris competes with. But, there are over 3000 radio stations in my territory and I get a chance to meet a huge cross section of radio engineers and visit transmitter plants on a weekly basis. It may be a surprise to some but I’ve heard both positive and negative comments directed at every company mentioned on this tread and a whole bunch more. Some of those owners and engineers swear they will NEVER buy another product from brand X based on either how they were treated or the problems associated with the product. That insight continues to balance out the reality that ALL manufacturers struggle to cope with the market forces of TODAY and no one enjoys a 100% satisfied customer base or even close to it. Harris operates the world’s largest transmitter manufacturing plant in Quincy, IL and along with that distinction goes all the problems associated with an operation of that magnitude.

For those of you that maintain Harris products I urge you to form a relationship with the Harris District Sales Manager in your area if you haven’t done so already. It is your DSM’s job to make sure that every attempt is made to provide you with excellent customer service. We often are able to get things resolved with issues that you may feel were handled improperly. Send me a PM if you’re not sure who your contact is.

Garrett Wood
District Sales Manager – SE
Harris Corporation

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Hi Garrett!

Obviously I can't speak for the whole group, but here's what my beef with big H is. It's actually NOT the equipment itself im most cases. I have to say the reliablity of the boxes I maintain have been very good. Where big H falls down is when it comes to parts and tech support. It's the bad corporate policies like rediculous restocking fees or renting loaner exciters out on less than 6 month old transmitters that make a guy want to think of someone else next time. Super high prices on parts, and many times the wrong part being sent out. (more than any one else.. I realize parts have to be somewhat higher to pay for 24hr support) The tech support policy that if it's after 5 eastern and you're not off the air, don't call support until we open. This can be real fun as a contractor or when there's no backup transmitter to go to when messing with the one to be worked on. I'm not talking after 10 pm or so. I'm talking after 5ish.

I appriciate your concern and fowarding some of our thoughts up the ladder. I really don't want special service because I complained enough that the DM or further up said "take care of this guy". What I do want is to just be a guy that can be treated FAIRLY as a normal customer to Harris. The path of least resistance is the path most will take. Engineering can be frustrating enough at times without adding extra roadblocks to getting things fixed. Harris is a big company so I realize they have a lot to think about. If they want to continue to be a leader in the radio sales business they need to do some checking into how they handle things, maybe even just act like a customer sometime and see how things go. They might be shocked to find out how frustrating it can be currently.

Thanks for hearing us out in here!

 

[ChiefEngineer]

Harris Service

When I'm at a transmitter site in the middle of nowhere and the "support" department never calls back that makes me less likely to tell anyone to purchase Harris.

Used to I would get directly to tech "support" but the last 8 years I always get a woman who says everyone is busy but that someone will call me back. (Secretary)

I get much better support from one man McMartin Charlie Goodrich and McMartin has been out of business since I was in high school.

My district manager has heard this for a decade and doesn't give a hoot. Nothing has changed.

I had a station off the air with their currently supportted Harris product for over a month because of this cat and mouse I'll call you back garbage. Thye placed a solid state backup from another company in place while taking the Harris non working non supported transmitter out.

Tech support wanted $15k to change freqeuncy on a Gates 1.I was going to bring it there. Cheaper to buy a new (any other product). A take it or leave it option I was given.

Why spend ay money on any Harris product when support from Italy is at least as good and many times better than Harris and I'm less than 200 miles away?

We still have a million square foot building in Richmond that is a community eyesore since you dumped on Indiana. Mason Ohio has a similar emptying building on "digital way."

 

[skippertthomas]

I am glad to hear from a District Sales person.. Please do not take our frustration as toward you.. But, I hope you can rely the overall feeling about the 'service' aspect of well built transmitters that need help... I will keep it simple (as I have one Harris 1kw I oversee)... The BMW is a great car... But, I can't afford to buy one in this age, when Mercedez offers more affordable support and replacement parts.. That's the best example I can think of.... I have always liked the sound from Gates and Harris, but the other things seem to be pushing my fellow purchasers away from our midwest source of tranmission.... It can change and I hope the best for you! Chevy and Ford have had their highs and lows.. Toyota is now making more in Amercia than elsewhere and passing everybody up with their support... Just some thoughts....

 

[136kgb]

As for customer service, a couple of years ago I was at a 1KW station in Texas that had been evicted from its transmitter and studio site, but they got to keep the towers and the land for the towers. Literally someone had taken bolt cutters and cut every cable going to and from the transmitter. The station had an almost new Harris Gates One. I reconnected audio, power, antenna, remote, etc. The box would still not run or even come close to running, so I called Harris the station was indeed of the air!. It was about 8pm on a weeknight and the station was loosing money. They put me through to a man named Ralph, Ralph couldn't have been more rude. He insulted my abilities then decided to demand that I spend 3 or 4 hundred dollars on a complete manual kit, and that until I had that he would not help me! I informed him that I had hooked up other Harris, RCA, Continental, Collins, and yes even a McMartin so I knew how to work on a normally built transmitter. We stayed on the phone for over an hour arguing over the damn manual kit, and that he didn't care that the station was off the air I had to buy a manual kit that I would receive in a day or two. Finally after I demanded to talk to an actual manager he actually went through and we work on it together it took 10 minutes to find the solution, and an hour and a half to argue with Ralph. By the way it was missing jumper that had fallen off when the box was moved.
Harris your customer service is terrible ! You guys lost about 7 transmitter sales to that one phone call, and yet Ralph still works there. Thanks.

 

[AMX]

You can always rely on Nautel for great technical support!!

 

[136kgb]

Who needs tech support for a Nautel, they do this great thing called "run" !

 

[fm-engineer]

Harris has died. The next support that will end is the non-HD HT series. Has anyone installed a DAX AM 6? What a piece of junk for a 5 kW transmitter. During a DAX install last year I had a few questions the manual didn't cover. The tech I spoke to could barely speak english. He was 22 years old and right out of college. Both of the questions I asked him resulted in a reading class from the manual. I remember the good ole days when 217-222-8200 was a great resource. Sad, very sad.

 

[136kgb]

One of our stations has that DAX 6, and last year the box went from 5 kw to 8750 watts on its own with in 30 seconds. What an odd problem isn't it? Do you know what happened the cooling fan for the IPA failed, and the computer took over to compensate for it and made the box ramp up to that then shut the station off. So Harris sent a tech out after we replaced the fan, and replaced a few parts including the back door which had been made for more cooling.

Is it any wonder that the original name before Gates was "Quincy Tin Works"

"Remember at Harris You Can Get Better, But You Can't Pay More!"

 

[CW]

One of our stations has that DAX 6, and last year the box went from 5 kw to 8750 watts on its own with in 30 seconds. What an odd problem isn't it? Do you know what happened the cooling fan for the IPA failed, and the computer took over to compensate for it and made the box ramp up to that then shut the station off. So Harris sent a tech out after we replaced the fan, and replaced a few parts including the back door which had been made for more cooling.

Is it any wonder that the original name before Gates was "Quincy Tin Works"

"Remember at Harris You Can Get Better, But You Can't Pay More!"

HEY that's Motorola's saying! (You may buy better but you'll never spend more Harris must be copying Mother M's management style...

I have dealt with the SX-1, Gates 1 and 5, MW-1, DX-10, and HT- series, as well as other models but those are the main ones, from Harris and they seem to be fairly solid (except for the SX which you can always trust that when the fuse is blown on the FET, the FET is shot as well...great indicator!! Just replace both and you're fixed..most of the time ........

I didnt like the HT-35 series because everything was soo damned PACKED inside (made me more nervous than a CEC ever did!) and the external power supply was a PITA if you had to work on it.....and WHO the hell decided to put a NON 90deg XLR on the cable they have inside the HT- transmitter that plugs into the Digit Exciter?? GUESS WHAT?? It just BARELY fits with the model they use...DUMB planning!...a 90deg there would have made life soo much better)...I WILL say I liked using the 4CX20000D tube...ran much better than that crappy YC130 CE was using after the EEVs went bye bye (and of course CE changed to their version of the tube; Emodel, later...IT WAS ABOUT TIME!

ONLY issue I EVER had with CEC was on a 816R I sent in for refurb (we had installed a new darker 816R5 at a new site..the old beige R5 was sent for refurb, clean up and retube....had an EEV and I asked for a YC130 to be put in it so all my CECs matched...When it got delivered at the new site, we found the skin was put on the wrong side (AFTER we butted it up to the rack..OUCH!...that was fun taking the end cover off and putting the skin on it so we could SLIDE the cabinet back an inch to make the line to the antenna switch fit as ordered and precut!) AND then after running it into the dummy load and noticing a power drop off I looked in the plate cavity...yep, everything was ok....no loose wirse, plate blocker looked good, 4CX15000EEV tube ok........HUH???? WAIT A MINUTE...where was my YC130?? I called CEC and OOPS, they were quick to show up with the correct tube, socket, etc...and the engineer I spoke to asked me what power out and filament settings were on the tube....oh 7.5V and it was doing about 25KW and headed DOWNward fast..HE was damn surprised the 15000 survived the 7.5V filament!! BUT once the YC130 was installed, she ran just fine...actually I preferred it over the "new" 816R which later turned out to have a control board issue and would not restart on power failures...blew the PC lands out of the motherboard later...well, that found/fixed the problem once the new backplane went in

I had a HT20K as backup at one of my Dallas stations....buying a new plate on switch cost us ove $250 bucks iirc plus overnight shipping ...which was another ridiculous amount.....and I found a replacement switch later at a local shop for less than $20....now thats too high a markup!!.the old Spark-O-Matic did come up and run when I told it to...(even though without SWR protection and it into a 7 bay Celwave with NO deicers, there were days I kept the fingers crossed the transmitter would keep running and NOT blow up....) luckily it was backup to the redundant 816R CE's at the main site......(but as Lark Hadley at KHKS at the time said once over lunch, "all its got to do is sell comemrcials"!)

I agree totally about Nautel...LOVE their reliablility and customer service...I wish I could have speced Nautel Q40s in place of buying TWO 35KW CECs or Harris' at some sites....KLIF 570 uses a 5KW AM Nautel...and it just runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and (well you get the point!)...and in a single 19in rack cabinet too!! One Class C3 that was on the same tower as one of my full Cs runs a Nautel 20KW....and it hardly EVER needs work..it did act up once and I was at the tower installing a new HT35...(to replace an aging CEC 816 27KW that the previous engineer NEVER took care of and it was dying a slow death)..the owner of the C3 who was not an engineer showed up and I offered to help...found out he had a loose inline Molex on the bottom of the exciter control board that carried the main 5V V bus and it was loosing contact..This was done in less than 5 mins with Nautel tech support on the line guiding me through the troubleshoot..once I told them the symptoms, they had it nailed down...(I felt like I was talking to CEC support from Dave's era!!!) I was able to get it temp fixed and they overnighted the parts to the station owner...I was impressed with Nautel's design and operation..and their background in LF/marine stations is well known....For the guy who says his manager says he doesnt know Nautel, have him talk to stations that DO run them.. Again, I WOULD have loved to have gotten a Q40 instead of two 35KW CE or Harris's at some sites...the footprint, cooling and AC eff. is enough to justify it...and go 50% and stay on the air while working on one side??? EGADS!!! An engineer's dream...true, I did have a Harris DX50 at one site and like the 3DX50 design with their hot swap modules....but for solid state FM? I would pick the Nautels over anyone else nowadays.

VistaMax?? Dont get me started on that junky thing....DID they EVER get it to work right??? Logictech, SAS, etc blows it away for less money....when one company I worked for bought it, it never worked right and 6 months later, it was STILL patched around....lotta good that did buying it....UGH! Nice design in theory but in practice, it left too many things to be desired...like WORK (I left the company and later on found out it was still patched around!)

The sales folks I cannot say anything BAD about; some of them would make better engineers than what they have at the factory as far as Im concerned because they bend over backwards and listen to ya .....the pricing on parts and tech support??....Thats another subject and its been shredded here enough....

 

[136kgb]

Well I'm surprised the Harris rep hasn't chimed in for a while to try to share some of hsi company's "koolaid" with the rest of us. And to lead us in a rousing chorus of "How Great Harris Art".

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

"Remember at Harris You Can Get Better, But You Can't Pay More!"


HEY that's Motorola's saying! (You may buy better but you'll never spend more

Harris must be copying Mother M's management style...

Hmmm.. The last time I looked Big M is loosing their asses. They made a lifetime out of jacking people up, holding them hostage for parts, obsoleting things like their digital trunking systems that left many cities high and dry, and just basically having an attitude problem. (About the only thing I can see significantly different so far between the two is Harris still has a real sales force. Big M got rid of local offices and went more direct. BAD idea.) The marketplace sorta of got tired of their crap and they have lost a LOT of marketshare in the two-way industry over the years. Other bad ideas like trying to continue in the cellular hanset business proves how stupid their management must be. I see a LOT of similarities between Motorola and Harris.. a scary amount of them!