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kyscott
Guest
I have been hearing rumblings that Harris will stop supporting the SX transmitter line in April of next year. Anyone else here this?
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According to the Harris Broadcast Premier website, support for the SX-1 will end on May 1, 2008 and the support for the SX-2.5 and 5 on April 1, 2008. I think a lot of the IC's in these boxes are no longer made or, if available, outrageously expensive. If parts for any new transmitter you buy today are still around 20 years from now, I'll be surprised. Technology races on.
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kyscott
Guest
ncradioeng said:
It's the type of technology. I had a 25 year old Harris FM-25K that I could still get parts for. Good transmitter, the first of the "loud blowers" from Harris, tho.
T
Tube Shortwave
Guest
Confirmed! Harris previously made the same announcement regarding the MW series.
Is this a good time to mention that BE and Continental still support products dating back to day #1? You can still call Continental and get parts for a Collins rig too. Harris needs to learn what support means.
Yea, I know... Parts hard to find, etc. How come BE and Continental can still supply parts for rigs made 20+ years ago and are happy to do it?? Poor planning? No interest in customer support?? The global decline in customer support trickles into the broadcast industry??
Is this a good time to mention that BE and Continental still support products dating back to day #1? You can still call Continental and get parts for a Collins rig too. Harris needs to learn what support means.
Yea, I know... Parts hard to find, etc. How come BE and Continental can still supply parts for rigs made 20+ years ago and are happy to do it?? Poor planning? No interest in customer support?? The global decline in customer support trickles into the broadcast industry??
The party line started with Art Collins, and has continued through Richardson and Dallas as Collins morphed into the FM side of Continental "You paid for Field Service when you bought the radio." And, the original 831G-1 is updatable to today's spec with parts available from the factory. They've taken an excellent design and upgraded it over the years. You >will< have to drill some holes in the shelf of the -1s but I believe everything else is boltin. Meantimes, Harris has run through two or three not as successful deigns to get FM RF out the top at some reasonable power level.
littlejohn said:
Harris always seems to have "a better idea", changing designs and models from year to year to enhance sales with the WOW! factor. This means they are constantly discontinuing stuff and consequently not supporting boxes. Their support guys, although inherently inferior to the other major players, have to deal with multiple boxes so they can be an expert at nearly none. Add high-priced parts, attitude, and lack of parts availiablity at times and your likely to end up with a high-priced doorstop in the future if you buy something today from big H. (Which stands for the hell you'll have to put up with from them.)
Contiental, Nautel, BE in that order for me... I think I'd rather have a sharp stick in the eye than give big H another dime of new money.
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kyscott
Guest
wgliradio said:
The only way I would buy a Harris anymore is if I were forced to, and I worked for a corporate group that did just that because Harris would drop their price to make the sale. I had to install two Harris Z5 rigs and prayed every day that they didn't fail on me.
I like OKCRadioGuy's list, however I'd swap Continental with Nautel. I'll push Nautel until the cows come home. I had a client with a 25 year old Nautel AM....Nautel still supported it!
The only way I would buy a Harris anymore is if I were forced to, and I worked for a corporate group that did just that because Harris would drop their price to make the sale. I had to install two Harris Z5 rigs and prayed every day that they didn't fail on me.
I like OKCRadioGuy's list, however I'd swap Continental with Nautel. I'll push Nautel until the cows come home. I had a client with a 25 year old Nautel AM....Nautel still supported it!
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Haven't had any personal experience with the Nautel FM transmitters, but the AM line is my first choice every time. For FM, I still prefer the Continental based on experience so far. However... I always did like the grounded grid CCA FM for 5kw and under. Simple design, reliable and easy to troubleshoot.
RFB
I like OKCRadioGuy's list, however I'd swap Continental with Nautel. I'll push Nautel until the cows come home. I had a client with a 25 year old Nautel AM....Nautel still supported it!
[/quote]
Haven't had any personal experience with the Nautel FM transmitters, but the AM line is my first choice every time. For FM, I still prefer the Continental based on experience so far. However... I always did like the grounded grid CCA FM for 5kw and under. Simple design, reliable and easy to troubleshoot.
RFB
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kyscott
Guest
rfburns said:
Nautel's Fm's are just as good as the AM's. Trust me, I have had both.
kyscott said:
I had a 50k Nautel that they had to BUILD parts when we had some combiner failures for the unit because it was so old, but they still did it, and in a reasonable amount of time considering how old the box was. They are kind and helpful and try to make things as simple and reliable as they possibly can. Nothing is 100 percent perfect so there were failures over the years for various reasons including lack of air conditioning and extreme dust issues with that 50k Nautel, but all and all it has held up like a trooper considering how abused it was. The newer owners saw fit to add some good filtering into the air system and add AC to the room, plus change out to the relays in the back to sealed relays which made the box VERY happy. This particular transmitter is old enough that it was one of Nautel's first designs at that power level. I bet their new 50k AM transmitter is considerably much better. I've seen their line of stuff at NAB last year and it looked MUCH better than even the older design.
As far as AM is conserned I'd most definately put Nautel ahead of CE. Does CE even have an AM transmitter line anymore?
From an FM standpoint it really depends on if you can afford solid state or tube. If you buy a more powerful FM and can't go with solid state due to budget, I'd get a 816R. Here in Oklahoma CE can put something on a plane and get it to me via air within 3 hours any time I want to pay for the service with no excuses, no argument, and no "call me back at 8am when our main guy is here..", unlike Big H dishes out regularly. Of course the old guys that do the 24 hour support thing at CE are so damn good they can most likely make a willing station manager or jock with minimal tech skills into enough of an engineering guy over the phone to get most stations back up and running or limping in a lot of cases even without the part(s) shows up. I can't tell you how many times I've had them get me up and going by bypassing this or that enough to stay running. Continentals are like like tanks. Nothing is fancy about them but the fact they'll keep you on the air better than ANY other tube box out there.
Nautel will have it to you the next day which is quite good too with great support. It'll be the right part also.
I have a clients that have a Nautel 1K AM box and loves it. I have another client that has a Nautel 5K FM box and loves it. He has TERRIBLE power (where you can measure 140 volts out of outlets at season changes due to line load at the utility level) which is about the only reason other than antenna icing he's EVER been off with power being available. The box just turns on a light and goes off until the stupid input voltage goes back to a useful range. I can't say enough good things about their stuff.
wgliradio said:
That sure is a .... vivid way of portraying it.
:-[What was Harris' predecessor (Gates Electronics) like in terms of quality and customer service?
I'm looking at the Harris company's history... I see these guys started out making PRINTING PRESSES and later bought Gates out. Weird. Maybe Harris should have stuck to the machinery business instead of trying to get into radio.
StephanieNYC said:
From what I rmember in the 70's, Gates Radio Company, a division of Harris Intertype, was fairly decent regarding service and support. I remember while I was in my teens in the mid-70's the community station I was involved with ordered new gear from them to replace the aging donated gear. They had first acquired a Gates Yard 80 console (which currently sits in my basement as a milestone of the start of my radio career). Later, there were CB-1200 turntables with Gray Research arms and maybe a few other small items. The station had a 60's vintage Gates transmitter and older Gates compressor and limiter until they were replaced with the Maxx Brothers (CBS Audimax and Volumax). Since I never did any of the major league repairs on the transmission gear I can't say how Gates was to deal with, but I know I actually rebuilt an old remote control and they actually helped me ... a 16 year old kid, by providing me with service info and schematics.
This was quite different from what I expreienced in the 80's when I was C.E. at the AM station I worked at.
When Gates was changing over to the Harris name, they stopped supporting some of the older rigs out there. A radio station (it may have been WGSM) had a Gates rig (cannot remember the model). Anyway, one of their former engineers called Harris to find parts needed to repair the TX. He was told that they no longer supported it, but they would do it this "one time only" and that they should look at their new line of Harris name transmitters if they are having problems with their legacy equipment.
It was right from the start.
It was right from the start.
wgliradio said:
We just have to get used to shorter lifespans on the equipment we buy than what we are used to. In my company we just had a Dexstar HD exciter lose a power supply and hard drive. Harris told us that is not our current model and we no longer support it. While that is an outrageous statement, and Harris ultimately took care of us, it shows where we are headed in regards to the lifespan of equipment. 20 year old transmitters may be a thing of the past.
But back to the SX series...did you really want to keep that POS going? Harris did us a favor on that one.
K
kyscott
Guest
greg.hahn said:
Transmitters are about to have the life span of a PC I suppose. All the more reason not to buy Harris.
True, I have one at 680 that's to be replaced next year, and one at 620 I hope to push off the dock soon!
Just curious. What do you think the life span should be? At our company they project transmitters at 5 year amortization, 10 year real use, and anything over 12 as being good luck.
kyscott said:
If a transmitter won't last 25 years without a FIRE or severe water damage it's a P.O.S. "We don't support that anymore" after 10 years is just a cop-out to not have to mess with what they don't want to mess with anymore. Apperently the government in many cases likes to change stuff fairly regularly. However, most broadcasters, even at larger market sizes, don't have extra money to flush down the crapper every 10 years for a newer shiny transmitter that sits out at the tower where no one except an engineer vists. It's pathetic that there is a transmitter manufacture company that even think they can get away with the disposable attitude when it comes to transmitters. Just because they can't figure out HOW to properly support several different lines they made over the years doesn't mean it's excusable for them to do so. Maybe their sales will go down another 15 percent soon and they'll do us the public service of discontinuing their miserable line of overpriced junk so they can specialize in hosing over the government full-time instead of the broadcast industry where we have to actually be somewhat accountable for what we spend, etc.
Big H needs to understand there's no golden spoons being dished out in corporate radioland these days (if EVER) so they might as well either get with the program or go prey on the goverment or some other deep pocket that is too stupid to make them accountable for their preditory ways.
Big H needs to understand there's no golden spoons being dished out in corporate radioland these days (if EVER) so they might as well either get with the program or go prey on the goverment or some other deep pocket that is too stupid to make them accountable for their preditory ways.
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