6400 Sent Back For Repair

Art - N4QNT

QST  QST  QST, can someone from FLEX RADIO please give me a status report on my 7 week old 6400 with low wattage out on the high bands? Are we board swapping? An actual soldering repair or sending a replacement radio? Sorry I have to ask this on the Flex Community, but I'm very frustrated that I've called several times asking about the status of my ticket# 23651 five different times and ask to speak with someone in the service department and no one is available to take my call and also sent an Email Thursday the 17th with no Reply yet..

 So maybe the Customer Experience Manger can escalate my request...   Or maybe while I'm waiting for my repair is there a username and password I can use to SmartLink from my laptop to keep me calm??

Thank you,
Art

Gerald-K5SDR

Art,

I apologize for the delay.  We had 20 people in Dayton since last Wednesday and most got home after midnight.  This includes people responsible for your ticket.  Thanks for your patience as we recover from the largest ham show of the year.

Gerald

Art - N4QNT

Gerald, thank you for your reply.. but this ticket and my five attempts to get a return call was well before Dayton.. I've called several times with no response. A matter of fact, I was at Dayton Saturday and talked with Matt about my ticket and said definitely  Monday someone would call me back.. still waiting. 

Wayne

Maybe he didnt say the date after all there are 52 Mondays each year plus or minus a couple:-)

Tim - W4TME

Art, there are two requests for an update on your RMA.  On on Thursday and the other one today.  As Gerald requested, we are asking for a little patience while the crew decompresses from Dayton and gets back into the swing of things.

Art - N4QNT

So Tim let me ask you a question, why did you cut off the thread below? I thought the Community was something we use to try and solve problems with our Flex radios,, read through this post and than your last reply... So this is how we solve problems by officialally removing further replies...

https://community.flexradio.com/flexr...

Wayne

Art once the helpdesk gets involved or service dept. then its hush hush and taken care of, for some reason unless someone (I asked once and was answered in the community here by Tim) asks what fixed the problem it is never seen again as to how or what fixed it. I would really like to see those problems listed somewhere in a file available to the community with no identifying info other than model a description of the issue and the fix to solve the problem no dates or anything. If that was available then probably the help desk and service dept load would be reduced especially after a weekend when its difficult sometimes to get help and thats when murphys law strikes everytime. Just an idea for consideration.

Bill -VA3WTB

It makes good sense to stop a thread after a problem has been moved to help Desk as the communications move to phone and emails.

It would be very time consuming for Tim to continue logging all the resolutions to problems that are in the system on the community. 

Wayne

However with a short entry like that it would be so helpful for the rest of the community and new users like a fup file frequently user problem file. Only containing resolved problems and solutions not ones that are still active with helpdesk or service dept.

Tim - W4TME

Wayne, we stop the thread because of exactly what Bill stated.  When the community people who do have the depth of experience the HelpDesk team does in triaging issues gets involved, we have a more difficult time getting to root cause because the person having the issues are doing addition things that changes the state of the problem we are not aware of and that increases the time to fix and can possibly create a situation where we have a false positive or negative.

It is possible that what we do in the course of identifying a problem is useful, and when it is, we create HelpDesk articles to that end.  But publishing what is done in the HelpDesk to get to resolution can also end up like people who self-diagnose themselves using WebMD and think incorrectly they have a deadly tropical disease because it has similar symptoms as a common ailment.  In that case, it is best to let an actual doctor diagnose and treat.  In this example, the HelpDesk engineers are the doctors.

Tim - W4TME

The Community is a place for users to help other users.  It is not a place where FlexRadio provides official support.  The HelpDesk is used for that purpose.

Bill -VA3WTB

Some time ago, Jay and I started a web site meant to aid Flex users. SDRgadgets
I started going through all the threads starting years ago to present logging all the resolutions to problems and creating a data base on the site. I found it to be very time consuming to do.
I stopped working with the site for personal reasons but I think Jay still has it going.

Art - N4QNT

I’m sorry that I’m frustrated and I’m venting out here.. I wish someone would call me back.. I like to know a time frame of repair or replacement.. The 6400 is only 7 weeks old, will I be without a radio for 7 weeks? If so please let me know l’ll purchase a new radio if I have to..

Wayne

Thanks Tim, actually I was beginning to think of what you explained as I was writing my last reply. Its kinda like using the web to diagnose your cars problems before you take it to the mechanic and then tell the mechanic what to change and then your upset he charges you for a sensor you told him to change instead of paying the diagnostic charge and him finding the source of the problem first time.

Except in the case of the Flex there is no charges involved monetarily just in time and patience.

Thanks for the reply, I agree it would not be helpful if it created a bunch of self flex fixers.

Jerry Gardner

I agree. After all, we're just hams--why should we be expected to know anything technical or be able to fix anything?

Tim - W4TME

Your ticket was updated yesterday

Tim - W4TME

Since your ticket was updated yesterday, I am closing this tickets because the question has been answered.