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SPE Expert Amp North American Announcement - Sales and Repair 7 - January - 2008

Posted by k9zw in Amateur Radio.
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SPE Expert Amp

Just up on the SPE Website:

Announcement for all the U.S. and Canada purchasers of Expert 1K-FA.

SPE is very pleased to announce that with immediate effect, Custom RF Solutions, Colorado, USA is appointed sales and repair agents for North America. The parent company of Custom RF Solutions is B&B Technical Services, well known for their capacity as excellent service engineers for all brands of equipment, and owned by Bill Leahy, K0ZL,and Bonnie Leahy, KB0HTC. Contact details are as follows

Custom RF Solutions
5293 Arbutus St.
Arvada, CO 80002
303-424-4858
email: bbtech1@gmail.com
Website: www.customrfsolutions.com

Following recent technical improvements to the Expert 1K-FA amplifier, SPE wishes all customers to have the benefit of these improvements, and invites all US owners of the Expert to contact Custom RF Solutions who will arrange for shipping, and for the improvements to be carried out, all at no cost to the customer. In addition to this, SPE is aware that some Expert amplifiers previously sold by Arraysolutions may require service attention and invites those customers to contact Custom RF Solutions accordingly”

http://www.linear-amplifier.com/

73

Steve
K9ZW

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More on the SPE Expert 1K-FA Amp Situation 23 - December - 2007

Posted by k9zw in Amateur Radio, DX Interests, K9ZW Learned.
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SPE has made a formal announcement concerning their progress to re-establish a USA & North America Sales & Service network:

SPE wishes to make the following announcement -

1. We have approached several potential new resellers for the Expert amplifier in the USA. At this time of year it is difficult to get things done quickly, but we confirm that draft agreements are with possible resellers and we are waiting to hear from them. These resellers have been invited to provide after sales service for the customers who have purchased amplifiers from ArraySolutions. If this is not possible to arrange we will make sure that there is a separate repair facility.

2. We have not wanted to tell customers about the details of the dealer meeting in Rome, where two amplifiers were tested to destruction. The reason is that we feared that a distorted version of events may emerge.

Regrettably, this seems to have happened.

The FACTS are that we discovered that the cooling regime in the amplifier was not adequate under some operating conditions (remember, it is a small unit), and also the location of the temperature measurement device in the PA could be better.

For most customers this is not an issue, but in very heavy use, or if the customer presented the unit with some irregular tuning conditions, the amplifier would fail.

So, we have fixed these problems.

We also found that there is one capacitor in the ATU that has been prone to breakdown due to a manufacturing batch problem.

We have thrown 600 of those capacitors in the trashcan, and we now use capacitors that are known to be good.

New metalwork has been produced to re-direct more of the cooling airflow across the PA module.

The location of the thermocouple sensor has been changed, and new firmware was written to send the amplifier into half-power mode sooner, to protect it, were the temperature sensor to pick up an unacceptable condition.

Since we did all those things we and our dealers have not been able to make any modified amplifiers fail. .

3. There is a rumor that our dealers have all been “gagged” and are not allowed to tell you anything. They certainly have not been gagged. Just ask them about this!

4. We will bring you some more news after the Christmas break. SPE will be closed from today until 2nd January. Please be patient with us, and have a fine Christmas.

Gianfranco Scasciafratti

Head of SPE.
————-

More when they announce their plans.

73

Steve
K9ZW

Previous Article: SPE Expert 1K-FA Amp’s USA Future & Support in Flux

SPE Expert 1K-FA Amp’s USA Future & Support in Flux 14 - December - 2007

Posted by k9zw in Amateur Radio.
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The SPE Expert 1K-FA website has been updated to say:

Announcement for all the U.S. purchasers of Expert 1K-FA. 

SPE is negotiating to establish, very soon, a new technical assistance and repair center located in the U.S.A.

All the U.S. purchasers of the Expert 1K-FA may contact this center for after-sales service and technical support.

We want to reassure all those purchasers that SPE will take care of their needs. We do however ask them to understand the difficult situation SPE is in at the moment, since there is no more maintenance service offered by those who carried out the sales.

We will make another announcement shortly with the name and contact details of our U.S. Support Center. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

The Array Solutions Expert 1K-FA Website has been updated saying:

 Effective immediately: Array Solutions has discontinued its relationship with SPE, the manufacturer of the Expert 1K-FA linear amplifier.

We have been instructed that all sales and service will now be handled by SPE directly. Please contact SPE if you have any questions whatsoever pertaining to their products or service.

We are maintaining our User Group for those who own an SPE Expert 1K-FA Amplifier. Follow the link in the menu to the left or click here.

For sales, warranty, repair, or service please point your browser to http://www.linear-amplifier.com

——————— 

I guess this explains why Array Solutions never shipped my Amp!

Shipping to Italy  for service is VERY expensive and therefore many of the needs of these new amps are being handled outside of the warranty provisions.

There have also been some issues with the Second USA Amp shipment being different (and having different difficulties) than the First USA Amp shipment’s Amps.

Whether for cost reasons or other reasons, the changes made to the second series are not being favorably received.

SPE had a revised main firmware Chip available to address some issues.

What little information that there is can be found summarized on the SPE Expert 1K-FA User List (which Array Solutions has agreed to continue to host).

It is too early to predict what will happen with this interesting product.

More as it develops!

73

Steve
K9ZW