Awesome support and product, even if it is discontinued.

William LaMontagne

I own a 5000A with all the bells and whistles. This was a lrage expenditure for a medium income, working class family (two kids). My thought was that, when asking the "boss lady" for money out of a month to month income, that I wanted to "go to the well once" as the phrase goes. If I was getting into the hobby, I wanted to get everything and not have to ask for multiple expenditures from the household budget, months after the initial purchase. So I bought the 5000A, RX2, VU5K, and antenna tuner. Maybe over a year went by before they announced the new "wizbang" 6 series. I was very concerned, on the brink of beling mad, that I had a model that was discontinued not long after buying it. Over several years two issues cropped up. While one hopes nothing ever happens to a ~$5K investment, two "oportunities" did. When that happend, the "man" as I think of him was always there. The man I'm referring to is the one and only "Dudley". I'm not sure he ever sleeps, but he has answered my questions quickly at all hours of the day/night, even a weekend at 11:00PM. He has multiple times given me the feeling, actually more than a feeling but reality, that flex radio was there to support me when despair struck and something failed or questions came up. While I am still dreaming of the new line, I can tell you that the support and repair of my charished 5000A gives me the feeling that this company, and the support they offer is top notch. And my opinion is based on being the service manager at a very high tech instrument company. Flex radio is a top notch company, with top notch support. I have, and continue to tell everyone in the HAM community that I would not hesitate buying another radio from them. Oh, and the radio's performance, which is really what drives their sales, is simply amazing. Even having a radio that I bought and it went discontinued not too long after I purchased it......Hat's off to Flex and their support of even discontinued product(s).

Rick

I couldn't agree more especially about Dudley. He's helped me more times than I can count!

Mike Sonn KF9AF

I too had a Flex 5000A that needed service recently.  I was the second owner (didn't matter to Flex) and obviously it was well out of warranty.  I sent it in 2 weeks before Christmas 2015 and stated that I hoped I would have it back for Christmas.  I have time off from work during that time and what's better than playing radio?

Anyway, at that time, I was told the turn around was in the 3 week range.  I offered to pay  a premium that make that my wish happen.  I had the radio back within a week and no premium charged.  I cannot say enough about the super service and great communication I had from many members of the Flex team.  Such a rarity in today's world.

Since then, I had the opportunity to trade my radio for a 6300, so the learning curve begins again...

Thank you Flex.

Jim Jerzycke

I was an "early adopter" of the 5000A, and I have never regretted it.

I've had exactly ONE problem with the radio, and that was within the first few hours of unboxing it, setting it up, and using it.

Dudley set up a Skype chat with me, and we determined something in the receiver section (I forget exactly what it was) had gone south, and the radio had to be returned to Flex.

I had a prepaid UPS shipping label within minutes, and got the radio sent out the next day.

Imagine my surprise when I had the radio back less than a week later, at no cost to me.

It's worked flawlessly ever since, and the *only* other company I've had this superb level of support from was "Brand E".

I'm about "this close" to pulling the trigger on a new 6000 series, but like Bill, I'm waiting for approval from "The Boss".

73, Jim  KQ6EA

Neal_K3NC

Dudley and Tim are inspirations to those of us in the ham support business. Dudley never gives up on a problem, always with that smooth friendly charm he has. Tim is my mentor in the biz, seeing we are both Eastern NC guys, I guess the shared time zone and accent make him easy to work with!

They make a lot of satisfied hams for just a 2 man team!

73

Mark_WS7M

I am happy to hear of the Flex support.  So far I have not needed it and I hope I never really do but like anything it is a nice insurance policy to have.

I hear the comments about buying something only to have it discontinued.  I don't think a company can really do anything about this.  I suspect that FRS people were strictly ordered not to push the 6000 series until formally released.  This meant they had to keep selling the 5000.

I think this is true of just about any product, but recently FRS has done its users a great service with the trade up programs.  I totally get that you might not have been financially able to take advantage of it but ask yourself how many other products did you get the option to trade up on?  Your refrigerator?, your TV?   I can't think of a single product.

As a computer / software professional I often get family and friends asking me "what should I buy?" when it comes to computers.  Right after that question from some of them comes the "I read about the next gen processor, chipset, or whatever... should I wait for that?"

I can't tell you the number of times I have fielded this question and I always give the same answer:

1) You will never keep up with technology unless you are independently rich and can just afford to buy every new announcement.
2) So buy what will do what you want.  Settle for no less and spend enough to ensure you have some growth.

Applying this to your 5000 purchase:

Does it NOT do what you want?
Are you suffering because of some missing feature (perhaps present in the 6000 series)

If the answer to either one of these questions is YES then you need to think about an upgrade.  If the answer is YES/NO in some combination then you really should only upgrade when/if you can afford it.   If the answers are NO continue operating and be happy.  We all want more/better, but we all need to be happy with what we can afford and have.

In my case I bought a 1500 thinking it would be all I need.  It worked well but I had problems getting amps to work well.  I also had issues with USB and like lots of people I found the CW op to be sort of clunky.

So I asked myself the same questions:

Does it NOT do what I what - YES (I wanted remote/LAN access... It really can't except via remote desktop).
Am I suffering (well maybe suffering is not the right word) but YES it was difficult to get it to do what I wanted.

So the obvious choice was an upgrade.  I then had to address the finances and luckily right now I have some side work that is bringing in good money so the upgrade was very possible.

It is important to try and approach things like new equipment without emotion.  Unfortunately I'm the worst at this.  Yes I get excited for the new technology and it is hard to turn it down sometimes.  I'm sure when Flex releases the FRS 9001 series HAL SDR I will probably roll over and say "Open the pod bay doors HAL"  (sorry could not resist).

Anyway enjoy your 5000 and maybe analyze if you need/want a 6000 in the future.  

Mark - WS7M

Walt - KZ1F

Not quite Mark. I, and many others, pre ordered the 6000 easily a year before it shipped.