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AM Transmitter
- Thread starter sparks794
- Start date
Installed a DAX-1 a few weeks ago, hasn't quit yet. It replaced a SX-1 that has run almost continuously for 23 years - now in backup service since Harris is dropping support for that model next year.
I have numerous BE solid state AM's under my watch...they've been good boxes. Highly recommended.
We've been running a BE AM 1A for about 5 years and it's rock solid.
BE or Nautel make some fine AM transmitters. You'll be happy with the transmitter and the company that stands behind the product. Tech support and parts service are great at BE and Nautel. Nautel has a US side office in Maine so they can get parts to you in most cases just as easily as someone residing in Canada.
I personally would stay the hell away from Harris unless you enjoy high-priced parts and the runaround. Generally their transmitters are acceptable, but all the fun that comes later dealing with them has pretty much crossed them off my list for good. They love to charge excessive restocking fees for things they recommend incorrectly though mis-diagnosis. Parts are higher than a cat's back to begin with. They still have a few good tech guys you can call there, but good luck finding the two of them left that actually have seen you model of transmitter. Most of the time you get some guy that's helping you read the book. Don't bother to call their 24 hour support after bankers' hours are over if you're not totally off the air. They won't help you.At 7pm at night they are in the "why the hell are you bothering me?!!" mode. Since I don't always have the luxury of messing with contract station's transmitters during bankers' hours it can be pretty trying getting help at times with Harris. Parts in general sometimes can become unavailable after the transmitter is 10 years old. After all we love to change transmitters every 10 years since they magically fall into the obsolete catagory, right? I've had them send me the wrong substitue part several times too, so that's something to watch if you want to by a transmitter from them. They'll try to charge a restocking fee for their wrong part too if you're not insistant and presistant. The last time they pulled the wrong part "but our computer says it's the right one!!" thing the coil voltage was the wrong one. I ended up calling around and finding one locally for about 1/4 the cost that was a perfect replacement.
Yeah Harris has a warantee on the equipment they sell, but if they want to you RENT a replacement unit while yours sees repair at the factory, how useful is that? I realize this is a little different case but I have a friend's station right now I'm dealing with what appears to be a exciter issue. He's been on the air for less than 6 months. To send his exciter in for service will require him to pay 400 dollars for a rental unit. It seems like every encounter Harris finds ways of turning their customers upside down and shaking out all the coins they can get. With other good options out there I find little reason to buy any new stuff from them for that very reason.
Take a look at the Nautel and BE stuff. You won't be sorry you did.
I personally would stay the hell away from Harris unless you enjoy high-priced parts and the runaround. Generally their transmitters are acceptable, but all the fun that comes later dealing with them has pretty much crossed them off my list for good. They love to charge excessive restocking fees for things they recommend incorrectly though mis-diagnosis. Parts are higher than a cat's back to begin with. They still have a few good tech guys you can call there, but good luck finding the two of them left that actually have seen you model of transmitter. Most of the time you get some guy that's helping you read the book. Don't bother to call their 24 hour support after bankers' hours are over if you're not totally off the air. They won't help you.At 7pm at night they are in the "why the hell are you bothering me?!!" mode. Since I don't always have the luxury of messing with contract station's transmitters during bankers' hours it can be pretty trying getting help at times with Harris. Parts in general sometimes can become unavailable after the transmitter is 10 years old. After all we love to change transmitters every 10 years since they magically fall into the obsolete catagory, right? I've had them send me the wrong substitue part several times too, so that's something to watch if you want to by a transmitter from them. They'll try to charge a restocking fee for their wrong part too if you're not insistant and presistant. The last time they pulled the wrong part "but our computer says it's the right one!!" thing the coil voltage was the wrong one. I ended up calling around and finding one locally for about 1/4 the cost that was a perfect replacement.
Yeah Harris has a warantee on the equipment they sell, but if they want to you RENT a replacement unit while yours sees repair at the factory, how useful is that? I realize this is a little different case but I have a friend's station right now I'm dealing with what appears to be a exciter issue. He's been on the air for less than 6 months. To send his exciter in for service will require him to pay 400 dollars for a rental unit. It seems like every encounter Harris finds ways of turning their customers upside down and shaking out all the coins they can get. With other good options out there I find little reason to buy any new stuff from them for that very reason.
Take a look at the Nautel and BE stuff. You won't be sorry you did.
Nautel or BE. The new Nautel XR series is rock-solid. Harris is a joke anymore.
K
kyscott
Guest
fm-engineer said:
Nautel. Go with Nautel. I had a Bauer 707 puke an output cap that was gonna take a week to replace. Called Nautel at 4pm one day, got a Jazz waiting at Louisville International Airport at 11pm that next day. Had them on the air by drive time that next morning. Took a direct lightning hit that next March, Nautel had repair parts the next day. Nautel has the best tech support by far.
This being the Holidays and all I drank some egg nog before posting as it gave me time to mellow a little and try to gvie my Harris experiences the last few years a positive spin.
Had an MW-1 take lightning a few years ago and put a Gates 1 in it's place. Sales indicated this would be an easy transmitter to change frequency on because we had an application to change.
Several off air problems with the air sensors and then once that was fixed it worked great. But Wait : Called about changing frequency on it this year.
Not including the overpriced parts at $4k: I asked about pulling it, driving it to Quincy, and having them change frequency. This is a working transmitter that looks new and has been used literally in a church in a clean environment.
The setup (not including billable hours to make the change itself) to get ready to change frequency was estimated at $5k.
A NEW Harris transmitter is 10k. So why spend my time taking this to Quincy? This estimate was last month. The Gates one will be pulled and placed in a hallway as an expensive paperweight and a reminder everyday why not to purchase products from Harris.
When you buy it expect them to decide to make it obsolete in a few years or tell you parts aren't available. Harris is into the big money business of military and cell and television. STAY AWAY FROM HARRIS.
Support?? What support? I can't normally get field service to call back in the same day (on the few products they still support) because they don't have enough techs. Kinda hard to order parts or get help when you can't get a call at the transmitter site. Ever spend a day at a transmitter site on a hill with no bathroom or heat (or air conditioning) waiting on support to call back? Think Harris.
Ever spend several days over several months? The old, "Call us from the site" story only works so many times. Think Harris.
I have amazing support from McMartin and Charlie Goodrich in Omaha on transmitters 30 years old. They are more reliable. Can be fixed with less expensive parts. I can't think of a time when Charlie never called back, even when his wife was ill.
Don't spend a dollar on a Harris product. They are as interested in radio as they are in cart machines. (Era when Harris last had customer service (Opinion).
The jazz product from Nautel is nice. (Must have a 50 ohm load).
Gary Liebish from Nautel will email you pdf product catalogues, pricing, and a host of extras like lightning protection for the ac, etc.
WIMC Crawfordsville has been running a nautel (the old 5 rack space unit) for so many years (without a failure) I can't tell you how incredible this is. Not quite WSLM in Salem Indiana but given the money spent on replacement of equipment and the aging DA the fact that the transmitter is still running is incredible.
WKRP North Vernon 1460 (WJCP?) has had a similar unit. WRCY Mount Vernon has one also.
Frequency change? No problem. Just change the frequency. So broadband there is no need to send it back for an output amplifier retune.
BE has the 500 watt or 1kw option. Stable and perfroms well. Has an ATU like tuner to set the load to 50 ohms but this is optional.
Nautel suggests the atu currently used on your old transmitter should work with their box.
Next week I'll post about trying to order a current product from Harris.
Had an MW-1 take lightning a few years ago and put a Gates 1 in it's place. Sales indicated this would be an easy transmitter to change frequency on because we had an application to change.
Several off air problems with the air sensors and then once that was fixed it worked great. But Wait : Called about changing frequency on it this year.
Not including the overpriced parts at $4k: I asked about pulling it, driving it to Quincy, and having them change frequency. This is a working transmitter that looks new and has been used literally in a church in a clean environment.
The setup (not including billable hours to make the change itself) to get ready to change frequency was estimated at $5k.
A NEW Harris transmitter is 10k. So why spend my time taking this to Quincy? This estimate was last month. The Gates one will be pulled and placed in a hallway as an expensive paperweight and a reminder everyday why not to purchase products from Harris.
When you buy it expect them to decide to make it obsolete in a few years or tell you parts aren't available. Harris is into the big money business of military and cell and television. STAY AWAY FROM HARRIS.
Support?? What support? I can't normally get field service to call back in the same day (on the few products they still support) because they don't have enough techs. Kinda hard to order parts or get help when you can't get a call at the transmitter site. Ever spend a day at a transmitter site on a hill with no bathroom or heat (or air conditioning) waiting on support to call back? Think Harris.
Ever spend several days over several months? The old, "Call us from the site" story only works so many times. Think Harris.
I have amazing support from McMartin and Charlie Goodrich in Omaha on transmitters 30 years old. They are more reliable. Can be fixed with less expensive parts. I can't think of a time when Charlie never called back, even when his wife was ill.
Don't spend a dollar on a Harris product. They are as interested in radio as they are in cart machines. (Era when Harris last had customer service (Opinion).
The jazz product from Nautel is nice. (Must have a 50 ohm load).
Gary Liebish from Nautel will email you pdf product catalogues, pricing, and a host of extras like lightning protection for the ac, etc.
WIMC Crawfordsville has been running a nautel (the old 5 rack space unit) for so many years (without a failure) I can't tell you how incredible this is. Not quite WSLM in Salem Indiana but given the money spent on replacement of equipment and the aging DA the fact that the transmitter is still running is incredible.
WKRP North Vernon 1460 (WJCP?) has had a similar unit. WRCY Mount Vernon has one also.
Frequency change? No problem. Just change the frequency. So broadband there is no need to send it back for an output amplifier retune.
BE has the 500 watt or 1kw option. Stable and perfroms well. Has an ATU like tuner to set the load to 50 ohms but this is optional.
Nautel suggests the atu currently used on your old transmitter should work with their box.
Next week I'll post about trying to order a current product from Harris.
I'm glad to hear that others have confirmed my questionable luck with Harris products.
I had an MW-1 (not "A") at the AM site I engineered. I had a problem once or twice with it (lucky for me it never fried in a lightning strike) and of course support is only interested in talking to you if you're off the air. "I'm off the air" I told the glorified "phone screener", which was the truth - by the time I got to the station and called them the daytimer was required to be off the air. I didn't lie, I just didn't volunteer any other information regarding their query.
We had a great rep, sadly now deceased, who was a wizard and made dealing with Harris not so painful. Art Silver (the rep) had assisted the engineers before me to modify the MW-1 for a second low-power position to allow transmitter operation at the post sunset level of 50 watts in addition to the 500 watt cutback. Anyways, whenever I needed an assist from Harris support it was like pulling teeth. Needless to say, I'll tell any of my freelance clients to avoid Harris like the plague!
I remember back in the 70's hearing others say that Harris wasn't so bad, but being in my teens I never picked the brains of these engineers. Perhaps Gates/Harris was indeed customer oriented back then, but it seems that they only survive on name recognition now.
I had an MW-1 (not "A") at the AM site I engineered. I had a problem once or twice with it (lucky for me it never fried in a lightning strike) and of course support is only interested in talking to you if you're off the air. "I'm off the air" I told the glorified "phone screener", which was the truth - by the time I got to the station and called them the daytimer was required to be off the air. I didn't lie, I just didn't volunteer any other information regarding their query.
We had a great rep, sadly now deceased, who was a wizard and made dealing with Harris not so painful. Art Silver (the rep) had assisted the engineers before me to modify the MW-1 for a second low-power position to allow transmitter operation at the post sunset level of 50 watts in addition to the 500 watt cutback. Anyways, whenever I needed an assist from Harris support it was like pulling teeth. Needless to say, I'll tell any of my freelance clients to avoid Harris like the plague!
I remember back in the 70's hearing others say that Harris wasn't so bad, but being in my teens I never picked the brains of these engineers. Perhaps Gates/Harris was indeed customer oriented back then, but it seems that they only survive on name recognition now.
I can second the opinions on the Nautel products. I've installed 5 Nautel transmitters in the past 4 years and the only problem I had was associated with a direct lightning strike to an XL-60. Called Nautel... had the parts on the way the next day. Best support from any transmitter manufacturer I've ever dealt with.
Buy the Nautel... you won't regret it.
RFB
Buy the Nautel... you won't regret it.
RFB
K
kyscott
Guest
rfburns said:
And they sound good, too. After getting the J1000 fixed, the phone company had not yet repaired the line (go figure), so I plugged a CD player into Inovonics 222 that feeds it. It sounded so much better than the phone line that we wound up eventually dropping it and putting in a 900MHz link.
I've heard the Harris AM Transmitter horror stories, but never had the misfortune of dealing with a new one, so I didn't share an opinion where I had no first hand experience. The MW1A is a frustrating exercise in futility to keep running...that I can testify to. Fact is, I'm in charge of selling an MW1A in almost working condition (it was putting out 20 watts & not meeting NRSC mask when it was replaced with a new BE). $500 if anyone is a glutton for punishment and has a pickup truck avaialble for a trip to southern Indiana...
In defense of Harris, I had a 1kW ZX go down due to a PA combiner problem. Tech support called me back 10 minutes after I called in the problem and shipped out another combiner next day air. The transmitter was under warranty and they didn't give me any hassles. I have a BE AM10A that blows power supplies every time a dark cloud comes by, yet there is a AM1A next door that has never had a problem.
I have a very positive experience with Harris over the years. Gates BC1G, followed by a SX-1, and now a DAX-1. Tech support has been very good. That is not to say things may change tommorrow! I did note at the NAB show in Vegas this year that radio seemed to be an after thought with their exhibit. They seemed more interested in TV 
I like the DAX 1 very much. It's new technology and is good and loud! Hasn't the BE and Nautel 1kw models been around for ten years now?
I like the DAX 1 very much. It's new technology and is good and loud! Hasn't the BE and Nautel 1kw models been around for ten years now?
The list of concerns given about Harris shows what's to be expected from a compnay which is run by the marketers rather than the designers. (And yes, wasn't Art Silver a prince?)
If I was looking for an AM transmitteer, I believe my looks would be at BE and Nautel for the most part. At the 50KW level I'd look at the Harris offering, but it gets downgraded a bit in my estimation because I have no way of knowing into the future whether radio is anointed or whizzed on this week. Or the particular week mine has a problem. The DX 50s seem to run without a lot of histrionics. Haven't played with the current one, when I looked at it, it looked as though they had kind of cheaped it up relative to the original. Perhaps someone who has one will speak out on it?
If I was looking for an AM transmitteer, I believe my looks would be at BE and Nautel for the most part. At the 50KW level I'd look at the Harris offering, but it gets downgraded a bit in my estimation because I have no way of knowing into the future whether radio is anointed or whizzed on this week. Or the particular week mine has a problem. The DX 50s seem to run without a lot of histrionics. Haven't played with the current one, when I looked at it, it looked as though they had kind of cheaped it up relative to the original. Perhaps someone who has one will speak out on it?
BobOnTheJob said:
A friend of mine is a glutton and may be interested - I'll contact him and see.
I appreciate all of the input. I was loooking at the Harris, Nautel and Armstrong. I met with John Bisset at a show last week and I'm now looking into a BE as well.
This station doesn't need a "high dollar" rig. It is a satellite fed daytimer. They just need reliability.
I kind of disquallified Nautel D/T price (the Harris was cheeper believe it or not).
I was raised on mostly Harris transmitters (AM FM & TV) and some RCA AM. I've usually had decent luck with Harris tech support but I do have to agree that lately it is getting less than it was.
I asked about the price on a basic Nautel 1 kw at Charlotte--difference between that transmitter and the BE was about $1,500~2000. If I still had an AM that's not enough difference to cause me to go BE over Nautel based on price.
If you live in an area with third world quality AC power, the BE will get you. Their power supply has no real isolation from spikes and voltage variations, and apparently much of it is not field repairable. AM near us has had to send modules/supply back for repairs twice due to power company shenanigans. I know the site had good grounding, and had some power line protection when we sold that station abt. 5 years ago.
Before you leap get firm quotes on both transmitters. Ask for exactly what you need--don't look at list prices loaded up with IBAC add-ons. Get a "best offer" quote from a distributor or two.
If you live in an area with third world quality AC power, the BE will get you. Their power supply has no real isolation from spikes and voltage variations, and apparently much of it is not field repairable. AM near us has had to send modules/supply back for repairs twice due to power company shenanigans. I know the site had good grounding, and had some power line protection when we sold that station abt. 5 years ago.
Before you leap get firm quotes on both transmitters. Ask for exactly what you need--don't look at list prices loaded up with IBAC add-ons. Get a "best offer" quote from a distributor or two.
The problem with many manufacturers is they do not recognize what "best Offer "means..in several instances, I have gotten a "best price" and gone with another supplier...only to hear that "I could have done better if you asked!" Well, I DID! Anyone else experience this? JBI
A
amfmhd
Guest
As far as 1kw boxes go...I would recommend the Jazz 1000.
I have three of them scattered here and there.
Great product with a very good service team to back it up.
I have three of them scattered here and there.
Great product with a very good service team to back it up.
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