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Harris... the coroner awaits?

W

wgliradio

With only $600 million of the companies $5 billion in sales coming from broadcasting, it's no wonder their transmitter and studio offerings are far behind everyone else. Time for that Nautel transmitter or Evolution series consoles. It's time for Harris to go and stop blinding broadcasters that their options are realistic.


http://www.rbr.com/media-news/wall-street/harris_vows_to_stay_independent.html

=====

The stock price of Harris Corp. took a dive yesterday as the electronics equipment maker said it was not interested in pursuing a sale or merger. The Wall Street Journal reported that bids for the company came in below expectations. Harris is a major broadcast equipment maker, although that business is now dwarfed by some of its other technology lines.

[EDIT]

"We believe our focus on continuing growth through the introduction of industry-leading new products, expansion of addressable markets, development of new capabilities, international expansion, and strategic acquisitions will deliver significant value going forward for our customers, shareholders and business partners as we have demonstrated in the past," Lance added.

[EDIT]



*EDIT-truncated because citation exceeds fair use standards. In the future please provide a URL (if possible) to the source and paraphrase the content that exceeds fair use.
The content of the post is copyrighted and unauthorized use is a violation of our terms of our terms of service]
 
Since they appearently make so little with the broadcast industry compared to other divisions, I wished they'd just sell off their "support" to someone else along with what little stash of parts they have, minus the employees and forget making any more of their junk. That way I won't have to be bothered by them next time I have to BID at transmitter. If Big H was gone from the list, the rest of the major players would be useful options I wouldn't mind having. With Big H you get the discount upfront then they make up for it over the years raping for parts prices.

Here's a little side-note about Big H. I have a friend that was wined and dined by Big H a couple of years back and went to their brainwashing "training" session they offered. When he bought his HD stuff he was gung-ho about their product line and bought their stuff. He has a problem with time alignment with his HD vs. analog. He's called and talked to tech support enough about it now that they won't even call him back. I guess when they can't figure it out they ignore. Good going Big H! Nothing like that great customer support!

I bet Nautel or Continetal or BE wouldn't have stranded him like Big H did.
 
OKCRadioGuy said:
SNIP -- He has a problem with time alignment with his HD vs. analog. He's called and talked to tech support enough about it now that they won't even call him back. I guess when they can't figure it out they ignore. Good going Big H! Nothing like that great customer support!
Click to expand...

There are several factors that can cause time alignment slippage including less-than robust transport issues and clock synchronization problems between the Exporter and
Exciter. I've worked through these problems with several customers using both RF950 and T1 links. If you care to send me your friend's contact info I would be more than happy to pursue a solution with him/her.


Garrett Wood [email protected]
District Sales Manager - Radio
Harris Corporation, Broadcast Communications
 
I bought a Harris HD FM system over 3 years ago, and I'm very happy with it. A Z20 split-level combined with a Z16. I did have 1 issue with the Dexstar exciter about 2½ years after installing the system. Harris fixed that the first time and it was fine.

No time alignment issues for me, nor for anyone else in my company. We probably have close to 50 installations with no ongoing problems.

I just don't really see Harris going away any time soon. I'd believe Continental going down before Harris. Continental lost Chenowith and Chancey... who do they have now that knows anything?

My next transmitter will be a Harris.
 
I like Harris as well. I know of a Harris that's almost 25 years old, that still works like a charm, and another Harris that was gutted with water something like less than 10 years after it was installed (brand new at the time). It was repaired and still works, serving as a main transmitter.
 
The equipment itself, for the most part, is O.K. Some of it is pretty damn good actually. Where I have issues usually arises from hit-or-miss tech support and parts dept. help. High prices to boot on parts.. Sometimes even getting the part might be fun because they stopped support, etc.

I honestly have to admit the two transmitters (non-HD) that I have from Big H are VERY solid boxes. The fun begins if they break though.
 
GWOOD said:
OKCRadioGuy said:
SNIP -- He has a problem with time alignment with his HD vs. analog. He's called and talked to tech support enough about it now that they won't even call him back. I guess when they can't figure it out they ignore. Good going Big H! Nothing like that great customer support!
Click to expand...

There are several factors that can cause time alignment slippage including less-than robust transport issues and clock synchronization problems between the Exporter and
Exciter. I've worked through these problems with several customers using both RF950 and T1 links. If you care to send me your friend's contact info I would be more than happy to pursue a solution with him/her.


Garrett Wood [email protected]
District Sales Manager - Radio
Harris Corporation, Broadcast Communications
Click to expand...

Hi Garrett. I'll pass on your contact info to the guy that's having the issue. I appriciate you trying to help out. I do know that he has AES audio being delivered to the transmitter site and not I.P. audio streaming with the Inporter and Exporter seperated. Everything after it gets over a conventional digital STL is co-located at the transmitter. So the normal wierd problems that arrise from not having enough bandwidth overhead budget or collisions over a link aren't the issue. It's all in one rack together.

Soapbox mode on:

I know you're only one guy that works at a mamoth company but I sure wished you sales guys would gang up on your upper management and get them to do some checks on some of the glaring flaws within Harris. It's not that Harris necessary puts out bad products. It's all the other things that can really piss people off like varying degrees of tech support and obsoleting stuff. It sure wouldn't hurt for H to somehow investigate how satified customers are. Nearly every time I have a support call to BE they send me an email inviting me to review how well they did. Feedback is good. Nautel and BE set the bar at a point where Harris needs to improve to stay in the game.

Soapbox mode off:

Thank you for the offer for help! I'll pass it along.
 
Thanks OKCRadioGuy -- I may have spoken with the DOE of the group in question on friday but would appreciate you checking to make sure.. The radio family is pretty small considering and the person I spoke with is having the same issues you described.

The feedback both good and bad is welcomed !
 
I wouldn't count Harris out yet...In the past this was said about them as wel. Two times I recall were just before the MW-50 and again before the DX-10 came out...

They rebounded big time from both these innovations-and AM products no less!
 
GWOOD said:
Thanks OKCRadioGuy -- I may have spoken with the DOE of the group in question on friday but would appreciate you checking to make sure.. The radio family is pretty small considering and the person I spoke with is having the same issues you described.

The feedback both good and bad is welcomed !
Click to expand...

I think you've got the right guy. Thanks for the help out.
 
Don't count Harris out yet. They've had financial downturns just like anyone else. And like everyone else, they will weather the storm. I truly depend on Harris for their service and their overall quality. I've dealt with them for over 25 years from 10 watt exciters to 50,000 watt transmitters. A true testament to their quality..... I have 27 year old MX-15 exciter (upgraded from an MS-15 model). That exciter, coupled with a BEXT PJ-200 (late 80's vintage) is the main transmitter for one of my college stations. It was the first Stereo unit for this station in 1981 and is still in daily service to this day. The only problems I've had with the MX-15 were having replacing the caps and repairing the power supply. Otherwise, this unit just laughs away at 5 watts, day and night and never complains. When the time comes, chances are that the first HD unit will be a Harris.
 
OKCRadioGuy writes : >>> I think you've got the right guy. Thanks for the help out. <<<<

You bet -- we're sending a field service engineer to resolve as we can't seem to duplicate the same issue in our lab and getting no improvement from working over the phone. We've replaced a few boards but that hasn't corrected it.. Interesting that the problem is described as the HD timing is jumping around NOT the delayed analog .. AND on all 3 installations. Very strange indeed.

Just for the record this is not special service prompted by the discussion here but rather continued and ongoing support from our service department. Sending a service person (at our expense) was just the next step and we've been asked to wait until the book is over for the site visit.

Cheers !

Garrett
 
I'd be interested in what they find. We've seen the same problem on one FlexStar, but have not seen it on our DexStars. The timing offset sort of dithers around. The workaround is to use the processor's time offset instead of the exciters'.
 
littlejohn said:
I'd be interested in what they find. We've seen the same problem on one FlexStar, but have not seen it on our DexStars. The timing offset sort of dithers around. The workaround is to use the processor's time offset instead of the exciters'.
Click to expand...

I've heard from several of the guys around here that using the processor's offset has worked out fo them much better also. If I ever have to do HD, I'll probably try to set it up that way.
 
To further muddy the water, I >think< we saw this problem occur after we did th last iBiquity update... but it's been a while. Ask someone with a BE FSi whether they see the same problem or not with the latest update.
 
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