Second Major Failure of his AirNav RadarBox unit

[Brian]

Sad!
Should have asked if he wanted it fixed first.

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Second major failure
http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=7141.msg87148#msg87148

So last month I ask for a repair quote. No quote but was told to "return to (Waters & Stanton PLC) and we will get a replacement to you once we have recieved it."

Today I'm notified that the F1, C2, C3, U1 were replaced and they want $130.  F<censored>k that, they can keep that piece of shit as far as I'm concerned.  I'll spend my money on a system that doesn't fail every few years instead if I decided to do anything at all.
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[censored was used on the above information.]

[Attachment deleted by Admin to save file space]

[Anmer]

In the absence of a quote beforehand, I'd ask Waters & Stanton to put back the defective components and ship back the RadarBox in the original condition together with a written quote detailing the cause of the failures.

Then I'd film the RadarBox being smashed to pieces and upload it to Youtube,

[Anmer]

Thsi just about sums it up.  And to think RadarBox24 is totally reliant on this receiver.

Maybe it should be renamed "RadarBox6.3.com"? 

"Hi Freqhopping,
All your troubles about the box is the result of very bad components inside the box
no filtering,crappy connections (antenne)
i looked inside the box,the first thing a radio amateur does hi and it didnt made me happy
As a ham radio amateur i know what i talking about,if i make a broadcast with 20 watts output
power,the box will go crazy.
there is no TFI in the shack,i work the whole world,and the antennes on the roof are not
close together.
So a lot of money for the box with lousy components.
Sure there will be a lot of people who are saying "ïts not treu" they dont know what they are talking about
Greetings
Ronnie"

http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=7141.msg87157#msg87157

[freqhopping]

Guess who?

LOL so my post on the Airnav forum was captured before they edited it.

So as a follow up, I decided to see how long it would take Airnav to contact me to work out a resolution.
Well on 8/28/2013, over 8 months later, I received another email from W&S.

"Hello Mr,

You sent your AirNav Radarbox in to us for repair a while ago now. I have been having issues trying to find a way to contact you but I have now found this email address. Your unit is working fine after we replaced U1, C2, C3 and F1.

All we need to do now is take payment for the unit and then we can get it sent back to you.

The cost of the repair is as followed:

Labour:        £50.00
U1:              £4.49
C2:              £1.99
C3:              £1.99
F1:              £6.95
Carriage:     £25.00

Total:          £90.42

If you could provide a valid card number, 3 digit security code from the back of the card, a start date and an expiry date then I can take payment for the unit and send it back to you.

Best regards"

So I then sent an email to support copying the above, past emails and what I posted on the forum.

I asked "How will this be resolved?  Had I been give a quote of £90 ($140) initially I would not have bothered to send it in in the first place. "

On 8/28/2013 I got an automated message

"This is to acknowledge that your request has been created with the request Id 9517 and subject "Re: [AirNav Systems #94470]: Radarbox hardware failure"

It will be reviewed by our support representative and a response will be sent shortly.
Your patience is appreciated."

THE END



Haven't heard from them since.  Go figure.  For a while in 2009 I was actually emailing directly with Andre because I was beta testing their 3.02 software.  Why couldn't he be bothered to contact me?


So now I'm using an SDR which is working great.  I spent a ton of time manually updating the Radarbox database with the editting tool someone made. I ended up with over 468,000 aircraft records (included the full FAA database at the time). So glad I didn't share it with Airnav, especially now that their newest software encrypts the database.

I just found the sqb file at http://pp-sqb.mantma.co.uk so now I need to check it's completeness.
I haven't had any luck importing parts of my DB into the basestation file in prior attempts.

Does someone know SQL well enough add data to the .sqb from a .csv?  I'm willing to share a spreadsheet with my most up-to-date records (August 2011). In this file I have over 2900 US Mil records. My most up-to-date records (12/2012) are on a failed hard drive that I haven't bothered to try to have repaired.  In my latest file I had even added every hex code from ADFxxx to AE4FFF or so that doesn't have an assigned aircraft just so they are there when the time comes.

[mhm]

Thanks for sharing this info.

[birdie]

Guess who?

LOL so my post on the Airnav forum was captured before they edited it.

Wahahaha - did you got yourself banned in that Forum ?

[Sun Worshipper]

So, the Radarbox was fitted with shonky components, what a surprise

It cost £15.42 in bits, the rest was carriage and labour, what a rip off!

[Keef]

I feel I might get some grief for this, but...

I don't think they are overcharging for the repair. Component costs are reasonable as is the labour. Soldering takes time and you've got to take the box apart.
They can't control shipping costs so that seems fair.

Of course they should have made the receiver of better quality in the first place so it didn't fail, and don't get me started on their marketing.
I'm not going to argue any of those points!

My SBS-1eR has been in my loft (freezing in the winter, unbearably hot in the summer) with no issues.

We need independent forums such as this one so the reliability and support of the available equipment can be openly discussed.

[Anmer]

I think the repair costs are reasonable too.  But should they be charging the customer when the product is not of merchantable quality?

There's a recent post on the AirNav forum from someone who's just had his "repaired" receiver returned and claims it's worse than before he sent it away.

And for those who do not live in the UK, shipping a RadarBox back to Waters & Stanton can be expensive and getting it back through the local customs can be problematical.

I had a Samsung TV lose it's picture the other week, within the 12 month warranty.  Samsung wanted me to take it into the local service agent, 49 miles away, which is standard procedure for screens less than 32 inches.

No way I said so Samsung agreed to send two engineers to swap out the screen.  Took all of 10 minutes.

Now that's what I call Customer Service.

[Triple7]

Does someone know SQL well enough add data to the .sqb from a .csv?  I'm willing to share a spreadsheet with my most up-to-date records (August 2011). In this file I have over 2900 US Mil records. My most up-to-date records (12/2012) are on a failed hard drive that I haven't bothered to try to have repaired.  In my latest file I had even added every hex code from ADFxxx to AE4FFF or so that doesn't have an assigned aircraft just so they are there when the time comes.

Sorry, missed this post first time round. sqlitestudio http://www.sqlitestudio.pl/ does, according to the notes allow you to export from and import to an SQB file in CSV format. That might give you what you need.

Tim