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Quote from a purchaser of one of our used amps -
I just wanted to let you know that ya'll are a class act. Everything about my recent amp purchase was completely professional and no assumptions left on either side. The amp and tubes were very well packed and survived the carriers testing of that. Was commenting to some guys on 75m last night what a great experience dealing with ya'll had been. Put a feather in your hat. You deserve it.
Thanx, Skip
K5SRG
Also, from Don, VE3PM as posted on eHam.net
After doing a lot of homework on which legal limit amp to buy my decision was definitely the Alpha8410. Here are some of my reasons:
- Built like a tank!
- 4 year factory warranty
- Very solid and well engineered
- Very easy tuning
- Excellent fault protection
- Low drive from the exciter delivers full legal limit output
I have owned my Alpha 8410 for about 6 months and am very happy with it. RF Concepts people are fantastic and will treat you the way a customer should be treated.
Go ahead - order your Alpha 8410 today!
You won't be sorry
Don, VE3PM
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The View From Operations from Kathy Foster-Patton, KB2HDT
We are always trying to juggle getting just the right quantity of parts and amplifiers at any given time to keep our backlog interval on the low side.
This is an ongoing challenge to every manufacturing plant, as we all strive to operate as efficiently as possible. For a company as small as we are here at Alpha, it is very critical to minimize product sitting on the shelf. Right now, our backlog for amplifiers is around 2 weeks, while that for wattmeters and dummyloads is a little longer.
Our tube program is going great guns. We have implemented the initial processes and are continuing to hone those to facilitate quick shipments to our customers. We had some minor "birthing" issues with the tube orders and have been working our way through them. Delivery times are approximately 2 weeks from time of order. Matched pairs/triplets/quads may be slightly longer....
We hope to have some additional tubes as time progresses and our program grows. Carey Fuller, our purchasing manager, KX0R, has his hands full right now juggling customers and orders, along with his regular duties. So far, so good.
73, Kathy, KB2HDT
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From the Alpha "Diplomatic" corner........
This month I continue to work on the 9500 upgrades with many of you. Please be patient as I get around to everyone.
Additionally, I'm working on amplifier technical manuals. The new final version of the 8406 manual will go to the printer at the end of August. The revised 8410 manual will be printed at the end of September and the revised 9500 manual will follow after that.
73,
Molly, WØMOM
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As always, you can get a FREE Alpha Baseball cap with your Call Sign embroidered on the back for posting a review on eHam.net
 Go to eham.net and post a review on any of our Amplifiers, send us a note through the "CONTACT US" tab on the front of the website and we'll send you an embroidered Baseball Cap. Thousands of people have these caps!
List Price: $15.00
Our Price: ZERO
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Product Availability?
RIGHT NOW
2 WEEK BACKLOG
9500
8410
8406
A2000
Wattmeters
Specific product availability is listed on the front page of the website, as is turnaround times for our repair department.
And, as always, the most up to date information on the happenings at the company are listed there too. Check it out at:
Thanks
for being so committed to a great brand, a hard working group of people, and our great hobby.
Call us if we can help you :
303-473-9232
The folks at Alpha:
Joe, WBØPJZ, Michael, AA6DY,
Glenn, AEØQ, Brad, KØHM, Steve, WA2NFR, Carey, KXØR, Gordon, WØRUN,
Kathy, KB2HDT, Petar, Pam, Carol, KDØVCT, Mike A.
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 A Special message to our valued customers...
When I first took the job of CEO for RF Concepts, I thought I had a good understanding of customers, their importance, and how to please them. Understanding their desires, needs, and vision has always been important to me. I have always loved having conversations with customers and potential customers.
Then, Molly switched her focus from sales to being our "Alpha Ambassador". My key resource for connecting with our customers disappeared. The timing was terrible - we were a couple weeks away from Orlando, and our key sales individual was no longer available. As a result, I decided we were not going to attend Orlando this year. Several weeks later, I received a call from one of our customers. He was very upset with me. He had travelled to Orlando specifically to see Alpha Amplifiers and to chat with the folks. His express reason to attend Orlando was to visit with RF Concepts and Alpha Amplifiers.
Needless to say, this amazed and totally surprised me. I was not prepared for this kind of dedication from our customers. I had never been exposed to this kind of commitment and hand in hand relationship before. I have thought about this call every day since that event. Needless to say I have had to completely re-think my view of the supplier/customer relationship! It became an obsession with me to understand this kind of relationship further. Knowing that customers are the lifeblood of any company is no surprise, but it certainly did not prepare me for what came next.
A couple months ago, I took a sales call from a gentleman that had always wanted an Alpha amplifier. This particular day was a very special one. It was his birthday. He and his wife were sitting around the dining table discussing what he wanted for his birthday. His wife announced he could have anything he wanted. He wanted a new 8410 amplifier, and his wife totally agreed.
When I spoke with him, I was so moved by his statements. He told me that he had always wanted an Alpha, but just could not justify the expense in his mind. He was so excited to have the opportunity to buy something he had dreamed about for so long. After about 20 minutes of discussion, he decided to go ahead and fulfill this long held dream. Again, I find myself thinking about that call every day. One thing I can say without hesitation is that I am humbled by the dedication of our customers to Alpha and RF Concepts.
I want to thank each and every one of our customers for their dedication and commitment. You are all absolutely outstanding! Thank you for being so patient and supportive!
To that end, I have been working to understand our customers even more. I have put together what I believe is the statement of what Alpha Amplifiers and RF Concepts is all about. I would like to share that with you now.
"We have worked our entire life to get to where we are today. We are finally to the point in life in which we can relax and enjoy life's little pleasures. Having the freedom to choose between sufficient products and life long dreams brings us pleasure. Knowing in the end that my decision will be supported by exceptionally talented and dedicated personnel lets me sleep at night - knowing that someone has my back, year in and year out, pleases me very much."
We may not get it right every time, but we make it right every time!
Sincerely,
73,
Joe, WBØPJZ
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End of summer blowout sale!
Summer is nearly over! As we prepare to enter the fall season, RF Concepts is proud to announce our new promotion - a free 4510 wattmeter, or tube complement with the purchase of a new amplifier! This promotion is good from now through the end of September. This is a perfect time to get set up for fall and winter activities. You too could be operating the finest full legal limit continuous key-down amplifier available anywhere in the world!
In addition, with the announcement of our new 4510A/4520A wattmeters, we are offering the older wattmeters (both the 4510 and 4520) for $695 for as long as supplies last. Obviously, if you are interested in a 6 meter wattmeter, would will want to seriously consider the new 4510A/4520A wattmeter family. If you don't foresee a need for 6 meters, then the older 4510/4520 is an outstanding purchase opportunity!
Trade in amplifiers for new products are always welcome. Give us a call to discuss your trade-ins! They do not have to be Alpha amplifiers!
For those that are interested, we still have available our 50/25/25 program to help purchase amplifiers - 50% up front, 25% 30 days later, and the final payment 30 days hence.
73,
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Product and Tuner updates from Joe, WBØPBZ
Product Upgrades
We are progressing nicely with getting folks upgraded to the new version of 9500 amplifier firmware. The upgrades are going well, and Molly is doing a terrific job of getting everyone taken care of. So far, all is well! We did run into a small problem with shortened warm up time performance, but that has been identified, resolved and in testing right now. Once we are happy with the testing, we will make that fix available to the community. Once your amplifier has been through Molly's careful installation once, you need not go through that process again.
The 9500 remote software is under development and progressing nicely. The team has made some terrific improvements in responsiveness and operation. We are still fixing some of the unintended "breakage" associated with software changes, and once those are fixed we will be ready for Beta test. We have a list of volunteers identified to assist with the Beta program once we are ready to enter that phase. I would like to thank these folks for volunteering. It is terrific having the community assist with ruggedizing products!
4040 Tuner Status
Well, we have ran into a hardware problem with the tuner. This one affects the accuracy of impedance measurements at SWR measurements greater than about 10:1. As a result, we have had to re-think the measurement and have come up with solution, which requires us to spin some hardware to solve the problem correctly. This will unfortunately delay us a couple of months while we get the new hardware, test it, and get it back into verification. Other than that, the tuner is progressing with evaluation and fine tuning.
We have had a couple folks send us notes asking if they thought they would see their tuners before they die, hi, hi. I certainly hope so! As badly as the community wants the tuner, I want even more, to start shipping it. We get inquiries frequently about when it will be ready to install. We continue to tell everyone that just as soon as it passes Alpha standards in testing here and in Beta, we will begin shipping. The manufacturing line is ready to ship just as soon as we release it. Most sub assemblies are complete and ready for final assembly and test.
We recently gave our website a bit of a face lift. In the process, we inadvertently lost the links for the tuner. WOW! we certainly got a lot of calls about that! Sorry for the confusion. Rest assured the tuner is alive and well.
New Wattmeter Acceptance
We have received a number of orders for the 4510A and 4520A wattmeters. The community appears to be embracing the new design and capability. Gordon has touted the performance of the new architecture in the last newsletter. Undoubtedly it is one of the most accurate devices on the planet for measuring RF power over a very wide dynamic range. Our extensive calibration strategy provides an absolutely stellar instrument for lab as well as field use - both amateur and commercial!
We have a few parts still on back order, but should be able to ship within a few days of receiving the back-ordered parts.
New Tube Program
I am very pleased with the response to the new Alpha Tube program! We have received a great many orders on new tubes. The most popular so far have been the 3-500ZG, in singles and matched sets, along with the 811A, also in singles and matched sets. RF Concepts is pleased to provide vacuum tubes at a very competitive price. Should you be in need of new tubes for your older amplifiers, give us a call. I think you will be very pleased with the outcome! I might add that this initiative is intended to continue our commitment to provide the amateur community options for enjoying their hobby by not having to worry about availability of tubes in the foreseeable future. Pass on the good news to your friends and look for the tubes on here on our website.
Used Equipment Webpage
We have recently made the move to bring all sales back in-house. as a result, our used equipment and demo amplifiers are now listed on our website, under the "demo amp page." Should you be interested in a lightly used amplifier, a demo amplifier (a few come up from time to time), or an older legacy amp, take a look and give us a call! The website is located here .
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Letter from Gordon Hardman, WØRUN
Software Activities
Apart from the hardware engineering that goes on here at Alpha Amplifiers, there is a parallel software/firmware engineering effort. For products that are in production, we release code for one of two different reasons. The first is what could be called "cumulative good ideas". This is the collection of enhancements or fixes to minor bugs that accumulate over time. We tend to gather these together until they reach some sort of critical mass, and then devote a block of time to implementing them. This allows us to do one set of "beta" testing, where we get a group of volunteers to run the code and report back to us. We fix any dangling issues that they report and may do a second round of beta testing. When the code is "clean" we release it to a wider audience. We have just done this with the 9500 code. In fact, with this, there have been a sufficient number of changes that roll-out is being controlled even more closely than usual. The second reason for a code update is some serious problem that is found that was not uncovered in beta testing. In that case we try to resolve the problem as rapidly as possible. In fact this has just occurred with the 9500, even before everybody has the newest code. The problem with the code that Molly has been installing (3.02n), and helping folks get working on their amplifiers revolves around the shortened warm up time. This is invoked on the 9500 by pressing RCL and then DIM. It turns out that with the 3.02n release of code, there is a timing issue where this works sometimes and does not work at other times. As luck would have it, during early testing it worked every time. So we now have a 3.30a release which fixes the problem. This has just been tested on a group of about ten amplifiers and found to work well, so we have switched to it as the released code for the 9500.
On the Alpha 9500 Remote software, there have been lingering performance issues that have made its use frustrating for many people. This is a PC application, and we have implemented changes to fix these. The application works well in most cases, but appears to not be stable on all PC's. We are trying to get to the bottom of this - is it a particular version of Windows? Or something else? In any event we already have a group of beta testers lined up ready to try it out as soon as we are happy with its stability. The big change in this program has been to allow the amplifier to "stream" data, rather than have the PC application "poll" for it. The polled approach, which is what we have as released code right now, ties both the PC and the amplifier up in knots, and makes the remote experience rather sluggish. I can report that when it is running stably, the new code gives a much different experience. So, hang tight, it is very close now!
73,
Gordon, WØRUN
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