A couple of weeks ago on eHam, a ham innocently asked, “Is TenTec still in business?” Well, as you can imagine—given the venue—the question prompted a whole lot of comments. In general, most people were hopeful that TenTec would become a going concern again.
Then, TenTec’s current owner, N8WFF, decided to comment and shoot himself in the foot. He wrote:
I can’t reply to every email of somebody asking if we are still in business. If you think about it, that is a rather stupid thing to ask. If you want a part or something specific say so. My service manager is a volunteer fire fighter and has been out west for a month helping combat the problems out there.
Here is the new answer for EVERYONE for ever more and is the LAST answer we will give. Are you ready? Here it is:
TENTEC IS IN BUSINESS, IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS, AND HAS CONSISTENTLY BEEN OPEN FOR BUSINESS.
WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. IF I CLOSE THE BUSINESS I WILL ANNOUNCE IT.Are we all clear now?
Same goes for alpha.
My goodness gracious people I have more important things to do than spend my time on stupidity like this!When we have a new, upgraded radio for sale, and yes we are working on it, we will announce it!
It takes MONEY. Where does that come from? I don’t see anyone pre-ordering or getting together and saying that they will fund a run of 100 eagles or whatever. So the only way I can get the money to fund all this is from commercial customers who actually pay. I then reinvest 100% of that towards equipment, inventory and wages.
We are not closing. We aren’t closed. We have never been closed. We are just doing what we have to do to get from Point A to Point B.
Meanwhile, you need a radio repaired or a part you email [email protected] and wait until a Tuesday, Wednesdays or Thursday when Tony is there to answer emails. If you email Friday through Monday you won’t get an answer until then. EVERYBODY who has followed the procedure has gotten their radio fixed if we can get the parts. It costs on the average $300 to repair just about any radio, though they can run higher if extensive damage or complicated radio like Orion.
By the way, I have Alphas for sale also. People write me and ask “Is Alpha open”? We have amps ready to ship and I never hear from them again. The same story goes there. They have not been closed one day. We have repaired lots of amps in the last year and continue to do so. We build new amps and have them ready to ship. All you have to do is order one. I suspect a lot of this Ten Tec stuff will be the same way.
Maybe I need to implement a new policy and just accept prepaid orders. If 100 people will step up and order the Eagle + which is the next radio slated to be on the market, I will take your money, cash your checks and buy all the parts we need to do a run.
73 DE N8WFF / HCIC, (Head Capitalist In Charge)
I understand that he’s under a lot of pressure, but why the heck would he comment like this in a forum not known for being forgiving? After this comment, the tide quickly turned, and the tone of the comments became way more anti-TenTec than pro-TenTec. The comments on the reddit item discussing this comment were also pretty negative.
What was he thinking when he wrote, “My goodness gracious people I have more important things to do than spend my time on stupidity like this!” You just don’t call potential customers stupid.
Also, I can’t imagine what he was thinking when he wrote that his service department—which appears to be a single person, Tony—is only open three days a week.
Then, he gets into a rant about accepting only prepaid orders. Seriously? Who’s going to send this guy money on the promise that he’ll build you an Eagle when 99 other people pony up the bucks for one? Normally, when you send a company money for a radio, they send you one from stock.
I’ve never been a TenTec fan boy, and you can bet that I think even less of the brand now.