FREECELL! Where is my stuff! Waiting since Jun 23

[pumphouse]

Im going to give Freecell one last chance before i post money order receipts, cell phone recordings, and forum PM's regarding the transaction below.

He has not sent me the following items:

1. One realistic radio that needed to me pumped up
1. New mic DP 50
Francis Amazer antennas with mounts.

This was paid for On JUN 23 to 292 radio shop.

Freecell, last chance send my stuff or I will reveal DETAILED INFORMATION, post money order receipts, delivery confirmation receipts and info and cell phone recordings. Also im ready to submit the info to the rip off report.com. and the BETTER BUSINESS BUEREAU

Just check this out! This is just one of Freecells excuses....

"Couldnt send your stuff cause a car crashed in to the post office" (on cell phone recording)

Thats a teaser.

More excuses on mp3 format to come if he doesnt reply to me on this forum within 5 days of this post.

Try me freecell. Send my stuff! Be a MAN and man up.


I will ask the moderator to erase this post when ALL my stuff is sent to me.

 

[Happy_Hamer]

Hello everyone, before this gets out of hand, please let Freecell and Pumphouse work this out.

There is nothing worse than others adding fuel to the fire.

Once it is resolved we will open this up for comments.

I hope everyone understands?

We usually let this forum run its own course, but we have seen these arguments before in the past, it never ends well with others involved.

As long as only the parties involved are the only ones working it out, things usually turn out well.

Thanks again

 

[pumphouse]

UPDATE:

(2) days have passed since this post and guess what? Nothing has happened! FREECELL has NOT made ANY attempt that I know of to contact me and work this out.

FREECELL has NOT even TRIED to:

1. Respond to this post via PM
2. email me
3. Call me via phone. (and if i dont answer if you tried calling from a blocked number, you know I have a message machine)
You have left me a message before

FREECELL has:

1. Seen this post but chooses to ignore and post away in other areas of this forum. Do a search under his name, and you will see.


Its a shame. The man is very knowledgable. I have had many great converations with him in the past. Why doesnt he just send ALL my stuff I PAID FOR IN ADVANCE MONTHS AGO?

Follow this post for updates on this situation

 

[pumphouse]

**** UPDATE ****

Freecell called me (about 15 min after this post) and will be shipping my radio out tomorrow.

As far as the other equipment, we are working that out.

I will update this post when the radio arrives.

A good sign.

Pump

 

[pumphouse]

*** UPDATE ****

Freecell mailed out my radio on Jan 23 and it arrived on Jan 26.
Radio currently on the bench to test. Will update results


*** SO FAR HE HAS SHIPPED TO ME ***

(1) pumped up Realistic radio. One complaint- radio and mic reeked of cigarette smoke. (I dont smoke)


*** HE STILL OWES ME ***

(3) New old stock Francis Amazer antennas
(2) Mounts - (1) Dual mount for the amazers and (1) Quad mount for the amazers
(1) New DP 50 mic

Will update this post when remaining items are shipped to me.

Thanks

 

[pumphouse]

I asked Freecell to align and pump up the Realistic radio TRC 453 that I just got back from him. Im not happy with the results. Look below:

Results of radio test:
Alignment test- Tested aganist my Kenwood TS140S. Both radios were on for 1 hour before test was begun. Kenwood set on channel 6 (27.025 00)

Realistic TRC 453 NOT ALIGNED ON FREQUENCY AS REQUESTED! RESULTS:

LSB 27.024 76 The WATTS OUTPUT WITH STEADY TONE 11 WATTS AVG
USB 27.024 70 The WATTS OUTPUT WITH STEADY TONE 14 WATTS AVG

Confused? How was this test done? I transmitted the realistic radio on LSB and USB thru my base antenna and the Kenwood was monitoring the transmit on LSB and USB. For the watt reading, tested thru a wattmeter.

This tells me that
1. Radio was not aligned and balanced- more watts on USB than LSB? Supposed to be the same output.
2. LSB and USB not aligned to 27.025 00 as tested aganist my kenwood TS 140S.

Maybe there is an explaination. I dont know. Im not very happy about this after waiting months.

I can make and post a video if the results are in dispute.

Who wants to review this radio and post results and video? Ill pay for shipping both to and from. PM me.

 

[74IN]

Zero beat the 140 on WWV.

My 430 needs to have me do that, maybe yours could use it as well.

 

[C2]

Re comments on the alignment:

I would guess the Kenwood is not a calibrated piece of "test equipment"

IIRC, the frequency stability of a CB class radio is ~300 Hz, so even if aligned on the dot, it could still move that much at any given time. After shipping and bumping around, I would not be surprised to see things change as much or more.

 

[Cat Driver]

Ain't quite sure what this is in hz, but the book that came with my RCI 2995dx says

Frequency stability= 0.001% with no deviation one way or the other.....


Ron.....

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Re comments on the alignment:

I would guess the Kenwood is not a calibrated piece of "test equipment"

IIRC, the frequency stability of a CB class radio is ~300 Hz, so even if aligned on the dot, it could still move that much at any given time. After shipping and bumping around, I would not be surprised to see things change as much or more.

Agreed. I'm not taking sides on this but I feel that as a former tech myself that is used to dealing with commercial grade equipment as opposed to consumer grade gear, I have to say that using a ham radio as a frequency referance is a very BAD idea. I have yet to see a piece of ham gear that was exactly on freq even when taken right out of the box and believe me I test all my gear now and then.Just because the display says 27.025.00 does not mean a thing unless the oscillators have been PROPERLY calibrated against a known frequency standard such as WWV or other frequency standard.Even then the frequency counter used MUST be properly calibrated as well.

 

[pumphouse]

Re comments on the alignment:

I would guess the Kenwood is not a calibrated piece of "test equipment"

IIRC, the frequency stability of a CB class radio is ~300 Hz, so even if aligned on the dot, it could still move that much at any given time. After shipping and bumping around, I would not be surprised to see things change as much or more.

Just wondering,

Why the uneven watt output on LSB and USB? When you align, dont you balance the power output on sidebands?

Someone educate me on this subject.

This post is not meant to bash freecell in any way. Just meant to deliver results of my test. And thats what I did.

Summary:

I asked freecell to align my radio and when I tested aganist My aligned ham radio, It didnt match up. It was off a bit. Power and frequency wise. According to the kenwood and bird 43.



To be fair lets do this the "right" way:

The radio is being sent out to a tech with a calibrated piece of test equipment.
Here is what the radio will be tested on:

I will post results and pics of frequency and power output ON THE SCOPE when done.

 

[C2]

Just for the sake of food for thought….

Using proper measurement equipment is a step in the right direction.

Note that with the Bird power meter, if you use a 20W slug, the accuracy spec for the meter is 5% of full scale. What that means is that if the needle says 15W, the actual power could be anywhere between 14W and 16W. That is the limitation of the device.

If you calibrate for 15W and your actual output is 14W, then some other tech uses a different Bird meter to verify the quality of your cal, and his meter is a bit off in the other direction, he could measure as little as 13W.

(never mind the accuracy of the dummy loads used)

Of course, I realize that you are comparing USB and LSB, so they should be within the tolerance of the meter, +/- 1W.

Also don’t forget that it’s a CB and, as good as they are, are not very stable. The adjustments are a bit sensitive and prone to drift around a bit with temperature, humidity, time, and mechanical stress such as vibration.

And please don’t get this wrong. The only side I’ll take is one of truth, if such a thing exists.

 

[Master Chief]

You didn't get all your equipment on the first shipment either? It took an announcement of US MAIL FRAUD until I got all my stuff I pre-paid from him. It took about as long as well.

 

[Moleculo]

Why the uneven watt output on LSB and USB? When you align, dont you balance the power output on sidebands?

Someone educate me on this subject.

If the ssb offset frequencies are just a bit off, you get this behavior. This is normally part of the alignment procedure. CBTricks has the alignment procedure for this radio.

BTW, my Fluke frequency counter hasn't been calibrated in forever, but it's always been good enough to align a CB. I know that's it's not recommended to go that long, but I do alignments for myself and friends, so it's not that big of a deal. Besides, it's CB and Ham radio we're talking about...not commercial radio

 

[pumphouse]

Just for the sake of food for thought….

Using proper measurement equipment is a step in the right direction.

Note that with the Bird power meter, if you use a 20W slug, the accuracy spec for the meter is 5% of full scale. What that means is that if the needle says 15W, the actual power could be anywhere between 14W and 16W. That is the limitation of the device.

If you calibrate for 15W and your actual output is 14W, then some other tech uses a different Bird meter to verify the quality of your cal, and his meter is a bit off in the other direction, he could measure as little as 13W.

(never mind the accuracy of the dummy loads used)

Of course, I realize that you are comparing USB and LSB, so they should be within the tolerance of the meter, +/- 1W.

Also don’t forget that it’s a CB and, as good as they are, are not very stable. The adjustments are a bit sensitive and prone to drift around a bit with temperature, humidity, time, and mechanical stress such as vibration.

And please don’t get this wrong. The only side I’ll take is one of truth, if such a thing exists.

Thank you for the detailed explaination regarding the bird readings and stabilitly of the radio. I have a better understanding of the situation. Will keep you posted with pics of the true results on the $20,000 calibrated scope. Hey, if im wrong on this I will admit it. Being in the hobby for 20 years, it just seemed a bit out of place that the two sidebands produced two different power readings and were not "on frequency"