PGXL February Updates

Richard

Another month is rolling out and Orlando Hamcation is upon us.  Has anyone, OTHER than the selected equipment testing group, received their New PGXL Amplifier?  What are your Initial Thoughts in Setup and Operation?  Interested to see the first comments from the General Purchasing Public.  TNX

Richard - N4RWG

David-N5PSM

Additionally it would be great to know when you reserved your PGXL to get an idea of where we are.

Matt (K0KB)

I reserved mine within 30min of the initial e-mail announcement saying they were accepting pre-orders. I am not in any testing group. I have received mine and it is excellent. Set up takes no time at all.

Richard

Matt... Thanks for the update and enjoy.  I reserved mine a the Orlando show in '17 and am looking forward to seeing the unit on my shack desk soon.

David-N5PSM

?Question?    When did you receive it?
73

KF4HR

It's a safe bet that very few PG-XL's have been received by the purchasing public so far. 

If good things come to those that wait, the PG-XL should be best amp the world has ever seen!

Richard

"If good things come to those that wait, the PG-XL should be best amp the world has ever seen!"   One can ONLY hope that is true and not a Fairy Tale.  One can only know for sure if it is on the shack desk and putting Full Power Out.

Bill -VA3WTB

A lot of amps were held up at the boarder, Flex must be getting them bye now for final burn in and shipping.

KF4HR

Gerald mentioned (in another PG-XL thread) that FRS received its first pallet of amps two weeks ago and additional units were in transit to Austin.  Unless new problems were discovered it seems like some units should have been shipped by now.

I would imagine if FRS could give each waiting customer a delivery date for their PG-XL, they would, but it sounds like they still have very little knowledge of what the factory run rate will be, which seems odd after all this time.  It's a shame FRS couldn't have designed and built the PG-XL in house.

Bill -VA3WTB

I understand they are shipping, and their are no known problems. I wish I could swing an amp like the PGXL,,it is not your average amp....

Richard

Bill....  Really that is the purpose of this link is to get a better idea of "if" they are shipping and to whom and when ordered and of course what are their initial experiences.  

KF4HR

I'm getting some feedback from friends attending Hamcation.  Evidently some PG-XL's are in, but slow to go out.  Engineering is performing fine tuning.  Flex wants them to be perfect.  No dates for mass shipments.  I was hoping for better News.

Keith Richards

For info if useful …. I spoke with 403A rep on Facebook yesterday and he advised that all current  backorders of the amp will be complete by June 2019. My question was when would they expect general availability )  

Richard

OMG!   My only question would be JUNE?  Of course there are "rumored" to be somewhere between 200 and 250 in backlog so if everyone is being run through testing before it goes to the customer.... what's another 4 months?  For us that that ordered at the beginning  and still have not cancelled their order are true Flex Radio Owners.

Burt Fisher

You are too pessimistic on their web site it says, "ESTIMATED SHIP DATE FOR NEW INTEREST: Q1 2019"

Richard

Based on past performance..... Pessimistic????  No,  Realistic.  But still hanging in there.  Still have only heard from 1 (one) person that received their PGXL that is NOT a Tester.   You would think there would be more....

W7NGA

I'm bummed.
I started growing my beard the day I ordered my PGXL. 

David-N5PSM

If anyone that is NOT in the testing group that has received their PGXL would tell us when they went on the list and when they received it,  then we could have a realistic way to see the light at the end of the tunnel and that the train is actually coming our way..............

HCampbell WB4IVF

2-8-2017//#11654//6-29-2018

Bob N7ZO

Strange.  My PGXL order #11652 was made on 2/8/2017, within hours of the announcement.  Although I received a call from Matt several weeks ago verifying my personal info, I have not received any further info on my order.

73, Bob, N7ZO

David-N5PSM

Thanks Howard and Bob.

Based on Howard's data. we are at 506 calendar days.  A Few more data points and we may have some usable knowledge.

I was told mine would be some time in March 2019.  I now estimate September 27th based on 506 calendar days.

need more data points!

David-N5PSM

Does the recall and retrofit affect the date you gave?

HCampbell WB4IVF

David, mine was one of the last, and possibly the last, PG shipped before shipments stopped because of the 6M filter problem. 

Howard

David-N5PSM

That's good info,  So your data-point is pre 6m-filter.

KF4HR

If I remember correctly Gerald mentioned FRS received a pallet of PG-XL's a few weeks ago (with more on the way).  It seems like we'd be hearing about those being delivered by now.  Perhaps we'll get more information in a PG-XL March update.  The mystery PG-XL delay continues!

KC2QMA_John

One bad thing about taking deposits and taking this long to deliver a product is the next time they come up with a new product and want to take deposits most people are going to think twice about going through that again besides it’s not like you get some big discount or anything.

The general Idea is the people who put deposits down are first in line and to gauge market demand, But after all this time who cares who first?

As for me I will just wait for the product to be officially available.

When the 64/6600M was announced at Dayton I put a deposit down and waited and although the wait was long it was not nearly as long as you folks waiting on the PGXL.

On a positive note when I did finally receive my 6600M I could not be more happy with the radios performance, it got me so excited I bought a Maestro as well and I love it! The software keeps getting better all the time and then there is SmartLink and now Multi-Client this alone is light years ahead of everyone else.

So in some ways “Good things come to those who wait”

Steve K9ZW

On deposits in general, please remember that the paid deposit system has a lot to do with assessing interest in the product and helps justify the upfront spend to bring a product to the market.  Much like Kickstarter. 

So it benefits everyone - whether you have a deposit in or not.

The manufacturer gets tangible feedback that they should get the product to the market. 

The person with a deposit in gets their reservation premiums.

AND the person WITHOUT a deposit eventually gets a chance to buy a product that otherwise might not have been brought to the market at all.   

An additional general comment - from my external observation the amount of information you can gleam from order numbers is limited.  Again from my external view it looks like orders may not always be exactly sequential, possibly I'm guessing from the complications of multi-users, some order batch processing, and changing order numbers for internal FRS reasons.  I've watch the order number game play out from the 5000 onward and fulfillment hasn't worked out the way people guessed.  I'm also thinking that EVER order for any FRS product is in the order queue.   

@ John KC2QMA - don't forget that there are TWO premiums that were offered - the front of the list when released position you mentioned, AND an included tuner when it becomes available.  

@ Keith Richards & Richard - FRS is a partner on the PGXL but 4o3a appears to have other channels, including direct sales, for other markets.  The import process is monstrously slow once 4o3a ships them.  I saw a photo of my (test) PGXL that 4o3a took as they were boxed to ship and it was a rather long time until my units was in my shack.  Personally I've had containers take six months more than the Europe to USA promised ship time.  Mentioning all this as a reminder that even if 4o3a produces all backlogged orders it will take a while to see them in people's shacks and likely longer until units might be purchased from USA based stocks.

@W7NGA - I need to know your beard secret and also what you do with the groundhog the rest of the year?  Don't think you are all that bummed as you hardly pulled your hair out fretting either!

@FRS - Might be nice to drop the community a tidbit of information on a set monthly schedule.  Even telling the community something in generality would be reassuring.   If I were doing the communications I would drop the smallest bits of information at the community say on the first of the month each month, a bit more in PGXL formal updates each quarter, and leave it at that until it is close to final payment & shipment for deposit reservation holders.  Might not be a bad idea to do something like that on any product in development that FRS has announced.  

@All - While staying within the bounds of my NDA I can tell you that the PGXL Alpha Team, both test unit owners and the FRS Team, are relentlessly on the case.  I often playing catch-up just to keep abreast of the communications among the group.  Just because they haven't communicated to the community doesn't mean your needs aren't their top priority.  An impressive process that is refining a really awesome amp!

73

Steve
K9ZW

Steve WS5W

Good info

Richard

Steve..... "Monstrously" Slow should NOT be.  I have ordered and received 3 to 4 OM Amps directly from EU and if in stock..... not one of them took over 4 days to get here.  Ordered through Array Solutions and processed to OM and then Shipped.  Only 3 Days...…  Wonder if FRS has a Logistic SME on board.  Should clear customs much faster than what is being rumored.  Oh yes.... I know the "shut down" effected Customs but standard deliver has to be less than a week from EU.  Even Palletized Shipments.  I venture to guess FRS is not shipping anything via Containers.  

Steve K9ZW

Might be worth your reading the old threads on this, as what happened is laid out there. I’ve had better luck shipping from Europe on one-offs too. As I’ve also had my own larger and container sized shipments delayed for up to six months with no recourse, I’ve long ago learned I cannot expect or uniformly predict expedited delivery. Interestingly I can predict that anything I ship to or from Canada will take an unreasonably longer time than one would possibly predict. BTW going back to that first PGXL shipment 4o3a/FRS sent the pallets by air freight but got caught up in transit with strikes. When deliberate delays are introduced your schedule is simply ****. If you ever get involved shipping internationally personally you’ll find out about more archaic rules, like census filings, than your worst nightmare would contain. 73 Steve K9ZW

Richard

Steve,


I too have extensive experience in Logistics.  However, mostly between East and Central parts of the US to the Far East, Singapore, Malaysia, China and India.  Places that typically are not "Strike Happy" such as the EU Sectors.

The initial purpose of this thread was to let PGXL Recipients let those of us that have been waiting for up to 2 years, to get an idea of where they stand as far as delivery is concerned. 

Sorry if we got off topic.

Richad