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QEI Transmitters

M

MontyRowell

Good afternoon gentlemen,

I operate a QEI Quantum 300E transmitter here at the University of Central Arkansas.

We had a situation early this morning where one of the modules shutdown so I took it out and was planning to ship it to the factory for repairs.

When I called the factory this morning, I discovered that QEI has suspended all operations due to the economic downturn until further notice. According to the recording, they asked that we leave a number and that they would get back with us. Gosh, I've heard that part 100's of times during my career.

This may be old news and I apologize if this has already been discussed.

Does anyone know what the situation is....do they have plans to resume operations ?

I've got my engineer working on the module now.

Just curious if you guys have heard anything.

Thanks,

Monty Rowell
General Manager of Broadcast Services/KUCA-FM
University of Central Arkansas
Conway, Arkansas
 
you might see if j-squared or lightner electronics will repair it for you. I don't think they specialze in QEI but I'm guessing at least one of them would be up for the repair. Good luck!!!
 
Got the word about QEI Wednesday...I was told it was a permanent shut down. I can't swear that it is, but my source has been accurate in the past.
 
This is not a total surprise, given the depth of the economic downturn, but disappointing nonetheless, since I have two FMQ 10kw transmitters. I don't think they sold very many FM products in recent years. I wonder how the other secondary manufacturers are holding up, like the Bernie Wise operation.
 
Thank you all for your responses....it is appreciated.

This has been a pretty good transmitter. It is approximately 15 years old. I inherited this station from the Mass. Comm. Department back in 2001. They purchased the transmitter a few years earlier, but did NO maintenance...none...natta on the unit. My engineer and I, along with the folks from QEI, spent the better part of a year, getting it back in shape.

I really can't complain about the performance since we got it set up on regular maintenance.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Monty
 
I talked to Bob Brown today. He and Ed Etshman are still around as the company awaits more financing. They are not dead yet!
 
I've got a module out of my transmitter at Bob Brown's shop now for repair, thus he and I have visited a couple of times.

Had not heard anything on Ed.

Thanks,

Monty
 
MikeF said:
I talked to Bob Brown today. He and Ed Etshman are still around as the company awaits more financing. They are not dead yet!
Click to expand...

They may as well be! Perhaps if they'd answered a few of my emails (and the emails from other customers) they wouldn't be shutting down.

Seriously, their after-sales service sucks. They don't respond to requests for information and assistance
with their products.
Before you say "call them" - I am half way around the other side of the world and a simply query doesn't warrant me getting up at 4 in the morning to make a toll call, when I can bang out a quick email any time of the day at no cost.

Not answering emails is the quickest way to lose customers. This is a wired world, if you are going to advertise your email address
on your website, you need to attend to it. Even if they looked at it once a day.

I have raised this issue on the board here before once when the name of QEI came up, so it has in a sense already been dealt with.
 
Customer no-support is a fine way these days to not stay going... Agreed! We simply are to busy to spend hours on trying to figure out how to get around problems with no support help. Keeping in mind there are fewer engineering guys doing more these days, I'd be very afraid of hacking off only a couple guys that could eventually tell others of their experiences and hurt future sales. With the advent of message boards like this passing on bad experiences is even easier. Honestly, I feel the ability to "get someone's attention" at the factory on here can really be a good "airchecking session" for manufactures. It helps the industry as a whole.
 
Because we are all used to production lines, millions of units sold, etc., in the consumer market, we forget that the broadcast industry is very small by comparison. Even the larger manufacturers like Harris count FM transmitter sales one at a time. When you divide the number of new sales each year by the several vendors, you often end up with a secondary manufacturer making only a few transmitters per year of a given model. And that's in good times.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more than one broadcast manufacturer succumb to the economy this year. It's hard to be upset at an empty building.
 
Bill Wolfenbarger said:
Because we are all used to production lines, millions of units sold, etc., in the consumer market, we forget that the broadcast industry is very small by comparison. Even the larger manufacturers like Harris count FM transmitter sales one at a time. When you divide the number of new sales each year by the several vendors, you often end up with a secondary manufacturer making only a few transmitters per year of a given model. And that's in good times.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more than one broadcast manufacturer succumb to the economy this year. It's hard to be upset at an empty building.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do wonder often, how some manufacturers can stay in business when their total sales for the year number in the units, rather than the thousands. These are indeed troubled times we live in.
As a kid back in the 70s I realised one day that these huge factories churning out masses of products would eventually become redundant. Yes, I understood natural attrition and the need to produce new to replace old, but I also realised that eventually the world would become "stocked" with most things that it needed and subsequently there would be a point where the cup was full to overflowing.
I think we are there now.
 
Received word Tuesday morning that QEI has reopened. I was told last week that its parent company was trying to work things out for QEI to get its doors back open...apparently things have worked out for right now.

I suspect ALOT of work will have to be done to keep it open.

Stay Tuned.....

Monty
 
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