I know exactly what you feel like. There are so many tinkerers and golden screwdrivers who throw that word "TEC" around.
People like you and I are lucky, if you don't have the knowledge or capability of working on your own equipment like myself and are lucky enough to find a competent tec you can consider yourself lucky.
I've heard so many guys say that they are technicians. 1 guy argued with me for several minutes, about A two transistor Texas Star that had the word modulator printed across the front of it.
In his mind this made it a modulator and not an RF amplifier. I tried to explain to him that a modulator will not increase your dead key output and will only increase your forward output power when modulating, and was basically an audio compressor but he wasn't having it.
I explained to him or at least tried to explain what it was that my denco modulator did as opposed to the Texas Star that happened to be labeled modulator.
Yet he insisted he was a technician and a two pill amplifier was a modulaltor because it did increase the transmitted signals output. With his logic all rf amplifiers were modulators and there was no distinction between a modulator and an RF amplifier.
I tried to explain to him that Texas Star and other companies labeled their RF final amplifiers as modulators to skate around the FCC Rules, after the FCC was cracking down hard on companies making amplifier specifically for 11 meter use. With that logic My phantom is a CW transmitter because it has a crystal socket, one so 239 marked vfo and is labeled as a cw transmitter.
That's one technician that will never touch a piece of equipment I own and I actually noticed the few people that did bring equipment to him mostly transceivers and eventually said they would never bring another piece of equipment to him again.
If they would have heard the conversation about what a modulator is and isn't, they would have never brought their radio to him in the first place.
People like that are a dime a dozen on 11 meters. I don't know if that's the case on the ham bands, but I'm sure there's plenty people who think they know what they're doing no matter what band one's on, but in reality these guys are little more than tinkerers with some basic knowledge about radios, amplifiers and the like. Another misconception is that because someone owns a scope and on another piece of radio test equipment, that makes them a technician.
I am totally honest and everyone on this site knows that to be true. I'm always the first to admit that I know less than anyone on planet Earth about communications equipment.
I don't even attempt to wire microphones.
When my microphones need to be rewired I wait until I have two or three of them and then send them out to My technician.
I'd rather pay whatever it is to repair a piece of equipment and have it done right the first time, then sticking my fingers in something I know nothing about and most likely make the problem worse.
Is Mike the best, I don't know that.
I'm sure there's always someone who knows more than the next guy, but I will say this, mike has repaired and or rebuilt everything I've sent him from amplifiers, transceivers, microphones and everything in between.
Mike restored several items to their former like new condition. And once I received whatever it was, that piece of equipment never needed to be repaired again.
Not only that, they always outperformed how they did before I sent them to him.
I don't think there's anyone who's going to make a stock Cobra talk a hundred miles with a wet noodle for an antenna, and that's not what it's really about.
It's about the knowledge and the equipment that's needed in order to diagnose and then correctly fix the problem at a fair price which mike has consistently done.
My phantom and Palomar 300 a both developed problems within two weeks of each other and although I'm still on the air because I'm lucky enough to own several amps which I use for back in the case my number one amps develop issues which is to be expected. After all everythingI own is 35 - 45 years old. The Phantom is already in the mail.
Not only am i 100% confident in his ability to repair it but unlike a lot of other technician who also know what they're doing I will have that amplifier back within 3-4 days including shipping time.
The way he operates is he receives a piece of equipment, takes it out of the box diagnosis it fixes it puts it back in the box and sends it back to the customer.
I've never waited longer than 4 days to receive a piece of equipment I sent him.
That's another thing that makes him excellent.
I've heard so many people sending amplifiers out to a qualified technician and waiting not only weeks but months and months in order to get that amplifier repaired and back to them.
It's not like Mike doesn't have other work to do he does, he has much work but he handles it one piece at a time and doesn't jump from one piece of equipment to another.
If somebody does fix equipment for a living they should diagnosed it repair it and send it back to the owner.
I've never understood when I hear people say that it took them 3, 4 ,5 or even 6 months or more to receive a piece of equipment they sent out for repair.
Mike once told me it's always easier to get a piece of equipment that's failed. According to him it's much easier to diagnose the failure than it is to have to track it down, but in either case, I've never had a piece of equipment held by Mike longer than 48 hours between the diagnosis and repair.
In my opinion that's just as important as how much a person knows about what they're doing. If the turnaround time is 6 months I'd say there's definitely a problem. 24 to 48 hours seems very fair to me.
I hear stories and read stories all the time about technicians have a pieces of equipment that have it for months before it's finally repaired and sent back to its owner.
Imo that's absurd.
I'm glad that you have had your tec. for as long as you have and, if he was no good I'm sure you would have moved on and tried someone else.
I too feel lucky in that aspect. It took me quite a while to find Mike. I posted several postings on this site itself when I first got on the air over a year ago, asking if anyone knew a tech that does work on tube equipment and I waited a long time to find a person that can not only work on tube equipment but transistorized equipment as well.
If there's anyone looking for a true tec. Mike's contact information is
mikesradiorepair@gmail.com
Don't hesitate to drop him a note if you have a problem. He has no problem diagnosing something for you on the phone, if you can and if your knowledge is such that you can repair it yourself he also has no problem walking you through it. He's not all about money he's passionate about the hobby and never has a problem helping a fellow ham or CB operator.
Happy holidays to all my friends on WWDX. I hope everyone has a better year than the one before.
God bless you my friends and thanks for all the help, you've all been a great help to me and have made this hobby so much more enjoyable than if I had not been a member of this site.
P.s. if you would like to see a small portion of what Mike has repaired and what he's about just check out Mikesradiorepair on Google+,
I will.post pictures of the phantom before and after the repair.
I'm very happy with my technician and in the past 8 years I have yet to find anyone that does better work or accomplishes better results but if someone can make me talk to China on a 4 watt Cobra 29 I'd love to experience that.
