[BC] Nautel 2 Armstrong

[Ernie Belanger]

Paul,

This does not sound like a typical response.

In fact our guys usually go above and beyond I've heard suggestions of 
placing a call to the power company to have the line coming to the site 
monitored for spikes and drops, calling an electrician to come check out the 
service panel,  checking STL to see if a signal drop was triggering carrier 
mute etc.

I can't help with a 3.5 year old problem I wish I would have know about it 
ASAP after it happened. I could have done something then for you.

In general however let me defend ALL manufacturers customer tech lines.  As 
many on this list will attest, a Tech Services line is there to provide 
support for engineers  who a) have reached the level of their knowledge in 
troubleshooting a specific product and need some guidance from the factory, 
b) have found or have speculation as to the cause of a possible problem or 
have formulated solutions they wish to confirm before moving forward c)have 
a problem and seek guidance as the best place to start their trouble 
shooting to minimize down time or d) need parts. (yes, there are other 
reasons but you get the point, they are Engineering Support lines not 
consumer support lines.

Sadly (and I am not saying this was your case) what we see more and more of 
is abuse of the Tech Support lines by unqualified individuals who don't have 
any need to be messing with equipment repair.  These are the folks who call 
and expect "turn by turn" directions in simple tasks which are in the basic 
skill set of trained and knowledgeable engineers.

These calls are difficult to field because normally the last thing the 
caller wants to hear is that  are not qualified and they need to spend money 
to have a qualified engineer come to the station to deal with the problem. 
In fact I have actually had tech support callers argue against calling their 
own contract engineer because they feel they can fix it themselves. 
Normally we gently nudge folks into understanding they are in over their 
heads and after a few minutes of discussion  they usually agree to call an 
engineer.

(again not saying this was your situation)
On occasion however, (and yes I actually did this after 15 minutes of 
attempting to diplomatically get a station owner to agree to call an 
engineer)  you just have to be more blunt.

In my case the question I asked was " Are you married and have a family?"... 
"Yes, came the reply "what does that have to do with this?"... "Well to be 
honest with you" , I said,  "I don't want your widow to collect your life 
insurance. So please leave the transmitter building, call your engineer and 
have him call me"

The engineer called me  about 5 minutes later.

No I wasn't with Armstrong at the time.

Ernie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul B. Walker, Jr." <walkerbroadcasting at gmail.com>


> When I worked at a station who had an Armstrong that was malfunctioning,
> their customer service after hours was left ALOT to be desired. We weren't
> sure if the issue was with our transmitter or the building itself, but we
> tried giving them a call to see if they might know.
>
> However called us back was very cold, quick, impersonal and rude. When 
> they
> determined it wasn't THEIR problem he didn't seem very willing to wanna 
> help
> us out and try and determine what the issue was or where to go to fix it.
> (Neither one of us were the "engineer" types back then, 3 1/2 years ago)