Flex 6600 ordered July 5th on its way

Wim

I ordered on July 5th, was a trade in of my 6500 which I shipped to flex end of July,
paid invoice last weekend and got the ship notice today.

That was 6 months of anticipation weeuw ...
See you on 4 bands simultaneously soon ;-)

- Wim

K5ROX

Thanks for the post, I may live to see mine yet!

David Salomon

Yours was the first post I've seen with a July order date.  Mine was July 10 (6600M).  Yea!  I see a new Flex in the near future.

Rich McCabe

This is a good sign they are rolling now. Congrats Wim !  Enjoy.

vinnie

I received my credit on my trade in June 7 2017, for the 6500 and ordered the 6600M model. On February 5, 2018 received my invoice to pay. Payment was issued on February 7, 2018. As of today February 21, 2018 no tracking information available. e

Wim

Mine is not the M model so likely from another batch off the manufacturing line, but it's on its way !

FRED W9TB

Wim, I hope you enjoy the new 6600 That you ordered over a month after I ordered a 6600M. I payed invoice 3 weeks ago and was told maybe next week.

Have Fun

Jim-KB1ZNV

Fred - I'm up to 4 weeks since invoice date (1/25/18) for 6600M ordered 5/23/17 and Mike said yesterday that it wouldn't be much longer.  We'll see.

FRED W9TB

Jim, I have found out one thing you can't be leave any thing they tell you. One will tell you one thing and another will tell you something different. If there was anything else out there that interested me I would have jumped ship months ago.

Let me know when you get a tracking #. And just what does not much longer mean ??? 

FRED W9TB

Just one more thing Jim just hope when it shows up you don't have to take the cover off an fix it ha ha.

Jerry Gardner

I see they've updated the "buy" page to say expected delivery for 6400/6600 is "estimated May 2018". Things indeed may be rolling, but at a very slow pace.I wonder why? Only took Icom less than a month to fully fill the pipeline with the 7610, which has been in stock everywhere for quite some time now.

Bill -VA3WTB

Can you say how many employees Icom has working on production and shipping compared to how many Flex has?

Jerry Gardner

I'd assumed Flex uses contract manufacturers. When I was doing project management for a previous employer we could go from zero units to 100,000 units/month in just a few weeks with a good CM.

Bill -VA3WTB

They do use a near bye CM, but then you have to test, burn in and ship the product.
You are comparing a very large global company with a small one. I would have thought you would be very impressed with what Flex is able to do. I am...

David Salomon

Hey Fred - nothing but Flex bashing comes from you.  If you dislike Flex so much, why are you here?  Get your money back and go buy a competitor's rig and enjoy it.

Jerry Gardner

At this rate, Flex will always be a small company. Perhaps that's what they want, so who am I to say? They should take advantage of the current demand for their product and fulfill it as soon as possible rather than keeping people waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Make people wait too long and they're going to look elsewhere--I know I am.

Jim-KB1ZNV

Fred - I finally just got my tracking # today for the 6600M exactly 4 weeks to the day from the invoice date. Maybe yours is not far behind.  Believe me I had some of the same frustrations as a first time Flex user but I stuck with it. Hopefully it will be worth the wait. But I'll keep my #8 Torx driver handy just in case. Flex seems like a good company with good people and I think they were just as frustrated in how long this production process was taking. It probably cost them a lot more in time and money than they anticipated.

Rich McCabe

"At this rate, Flex will always be a small company."

"Make people wait too long and they're going to look elsewhere--I know I am" 

For what its worth, I like the small company mentality and service I get. I am willing to be a little more patient because of that.

So really, where else are you going to look?  I really don't see anyone else offering a product like this.

I just took delivery on a new 6600m and I had a pre-made list of things I was not going to like about the M radio before it got here. I had 9 months to compile this list. What was I thinking. This radio is amazing and was worth the wait.

Rich

Bill -VA3WTB

Jerry, good luck with what you will find. Most people know what they are dealing with when the buy Flex. They get it, a small company doing big things. I know you feel they are not doing a very good job in getting the products to customers, that is fine, no harm done.
It also seems you really don't care either way, and you are just tying to get attention here.
Have fun with what ever you find as you said you are looking. As for the rest of us,,we will just go on with our wonderful radios each day.

FRED W9TB

Jim, glad you are going to get yours soon. That means I won't be far be hind you.

FRED W9TB

David, Some people just can't stand to hear the truth !

Gary w8vi

Good to hear and congratulations Jim that your Flex 6600M will be shipping today. I ordered a 6600 (non M) model on May 28 last year and received it Saturday February 17th.  Was surprised to see UPS delivering on Saturday. I can understand why it takes longer to assemble and test the M models but it now looks like they are ramping up production on the M lines.

Coming from a manufacturing background I was expecting delivery around the middle of February after viewing the prototypes at Xenia.  Sooner would have been nice but I' am glad that they did not rush production to meet optimistic delivery targets. 

I have been using a 6300 with a Maestro and now with the 6600 it all works great with the Maestro, Windows 10 and the Apple IoS app.

Hope you enjoy the new 6600M!

Jim-KB1ZNV

Thanks Gary. Looking forward to setting it up and playing around. I hope the SmartSDR works OK using Windows 10 on my Mac. I already downloaded SmartSDR IOS on my iPad.

Jerry Gardner

"It also seems you really don't care either way, and you are just tying to get attention here."

I do care, otherwise I wouldn't bother posting here. And yes, if I can get the attention of the people who run things and prompt them to ramp up production quicker, then so much the better.

I realize that some of you come across as fan boys ("our wonderful radios"), but I'm not interested in hanging around here with y'all in a group hug singing Kum ba ya--I just want the facts on production and ship dates so I can make a decision.

Tim - W4TME

Jerry, we're not keeping you waiting because you do not have a new radio on order.

Do you honestly believe that we are not doing everything possible to maximize production?  We have people working on Saturdays to get radios ready for shipment on Mondays.  We have hired temp folks to handle the extra shipping load.

Our desire to ship the order backlog in its entirety is at least an order of magnitude greater than anyone's desire to receive a new radio.

Have you not been reading the Community updates from Gerald?  Let me repost part of it for your convenience.

As stated previously, all models are shipping in volume.  As with any new product launch, there are learning curve issues that have to be worked out.  The biggest issue we are working through currently is to get the correct product mix from the factory to match our order sequence.  They are committed to working this issue with us and have already taken steps to do so.

For competitive reasons, we will not provide more public information.  I will say that we are estimating that we can ship new radio orders before the end of April.  The PCBs are built and tested well in advance of final assembly since they all have to come together at the same time in the correct mix.
  
FlexRadio and our CM partner are working diligently to ship your radio as soon as we can.
  
Thanks for your patience as we work through a very large backlog of orders.

To place an order, you can reach sales by calling 1.512.535.4713 ext 1.

Rich McCabe

"Only took Icom less than a month to fully fill the pipeline with the 7610"

7610????  Jerry was that the new radio they introduced at Dayton 2 years in a row taking pre-orders? 

Jerry Gardner

"Jerry, we're not keeping you waiting because you do not have a new radio on order."

Sorry, I buy radios, not  "reservations". For every other product I've had to wait for from other companies, the company took my order, but didn't charge my card until the day they shipped my order. So you are effectively keeping me waiting.

"Do you honestly believe that we are not doing everything possible to maximize production?"

I honestly don't know what to believe--I've read so much conflicting stuff, including from Flex (I believe you announced at Dayton last year that the new rigs were shipping in August/September 2017, and even as late as October Flex was saying the 6400M/6600M would ship in October/November).

Jerry Gardner

Yes it was, and I agree, Icom didn't handle it well either.

My comment was directed at the fact that once they did start shipping units in the U.S. it only took them a month or less to fill the pipeline to the point where I could go to an HRO and walk out the door with one or get one shipped same-day from DX Engineering.

Rich McCabe

OK, well it comes back to what else can you buy?  Have you owned a 6000 series yet?

Not long ago, I was an Icom fan boy who worked up to a 7800. After getting a 6500 it never got turned on and I finally sold it. There is no other radio on the market except the Flex 6000 series that currently interests me.

Hard to debate that Flex has trouble making deliveries so I am not going to argue that. I was involved with the moving target of delivery dates with a 5/22 order so I know what you are saying.

But its a great radio and they are a good company.  Its up to you to decide if you want to deal with some small company shortcomings in exchange for some small company privileges.

Wish you the best with whatever you order.

Rich
kd0zv

Jerry Gardner

"OK, well it comes back to what else can you buy?  Have you owned a 6000 series yet?"

I currently own a Flex-6500 and a Flex-6700. 

I'm also looking at the Apache Labs ANAN-7000DLE, the Icom 7610, and a few others.

Rich McCabe

Well that answers that