Anyone else have issues with getting items ordered from W4RT?

Equipment
1

Ordered a new battery set for my 817 about a month ago. No battery yet. I have sent 4 emails with no response at all. Am I the only one?

Kent K9EZ

2

No you are not the only one. I have not purchased anything from them, but as a long time owner of an FT-817 I have seen this query come up on the FT-817 yahoo groups countless times.

They are reputed to provide excellent gear and technical service, but their timeliness can suffer and responsiveness to emails is usually described as poor. I believe that if an item is not in stock they wait until it is received before billing your credit card, so that may be a way of determining the status of your order!

I understand that the best approach is to call them by phone - a search online should locate it.

Matt
VK1MA

3

Thank you Matt. I hate to complain about any small business, especially Ham Radio related. I think I found the phone number. Thanks for the heads up. Kind of wished I had not bought into his full battery system now.

Kent, K9EZ

4

Kent,
I had placed an order a few months ago with similar results. W4RT is actually Ralph Peterson N5DOI. After several failed attempts to email Ralph I called him. In our conversation I learned he recently moved his operation and things were a bit out of sorts. As it turns out my part was no longer available. Ralph apologized and promptly refunded my money.
Despite the less ideal communication with regard to email, if W4RT had something that I needed, I would not hesitate to contact Ralph. The phone number I used to contact Ralph is (256) 536-7633.
Best regards,
Harry K2ATX

5

Thanks Harry! I’ve been trying to call that phone number for a couple of days now and keep getting voicemail and no response back. Very frustrating. It’s been about 60 days since I place my order with no communication whatsoever.

6

btw… is the guy alive/active? his licence expired on 2016-09-18 :S

7

The holidays have been busy and I have not been keeping up to date with my replies. Did you ever manage to contact Ralph to resolve your issue?

8

Sorry for the late response. No and it looks like the web site is pretty much down.