Michael Lawson wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
news
Michael Lawson wrote:

"m II" wrote in message
news:hC%De.148005$tt5.90754@edtnps90...


m II wrote:



mike maghakian wrote:



I have owned both several times and currently own the 800.
the price of a later edition 8, which is the ONLY only one that

a

person should use is too high. almost double the cost of a good

tested


800





I've been wondering about the manufacturing dates on the 800. How

can I


tell when a set was made? In what order were the fixes made

during

manufacture?

If I see a set, how can I tell if it's the latest version, so I

don't


get stuck with garbage quality control?


Thanks for the information. I'll look elsewhere for the help.


RHF provided this a long time ago to the Yahoo Sat 800 group:

"The SN is # 8010008400"

Serial Number Decoder: 8YMM******
Y = "0" = 2000
MM = "10" = October

NOTE: The so-called Third Generation Grundig Satellit 800
Millennium Radios with all the "Fixes" built into them
started to be built in the First Quarter Jan-Feb-Mar 2001.

--Mike L.


The so called Third Generation Sat 800 is a term that was started

by

our favorite e-Bay scamster. It was so effective a marketing tool

that

it was picked up by Lextronix/Eton and used in their promotional
materials. Its use was also strongly encouraged when setting up the
numerous Grundig drop-ship "retailers" on e-Bay and other other

outlets.

But the term is entirely fictional. It has no meaning.

There is only ONE change in the Sat 800 over its entire

production

cycle: ball bearings on the tuning shaft. No other changes were made
throughout the life cycle of the product. This according to an

insider

from Lextronix, now Eton, and reported here, numerous times.

Though QC appeared to have improved in successive production

runs,

the rate of failure was still high enough in later runs to require a
significant percentage of refurbishment at Drake.


A general rule of thumb was (and still is) to buy the
Sat 800 from a reputable dealer, such as Universal.
We used to argue about this back when the Sat 800
was released, Peter. It always seemed that the Sat
800's sold by Universal seemed to work fine, but
the Sat 800's sold by places like The Sharper Image
seemed to have a high failure rate.


If you're really determined to go with this radio, find one that

has

been through the Drake repair center. History and user comments in

these

fora strongly suggest that there is no guarantee of a quality unit
simply by selecting from 'desirable' serial numbers.

All of the 'fixes'--- all ONE of them--- are found in any unit

with a

ball bearing tuning shaft.


That's rather odd. When I spoke to the Drake people
when I went to pick up my Sat 800 after a tuneup, they
said that they made several changes authorized by Eton
as part of bringing my Sat 800 (one of the first ones
sold) up to the current model. I didn't press them on it,
but several usually means more than one, and I don't
think they meant the couple of caps that were bad and
needed replacing, either.

Also, I do know that Lextronics did replace the original
power supply after a lot of people complained about
the RF in them; I did complain, and received a different
power supply model free of charge.

--Mike L.



I remember the arguments. Yes, Universal sold rigs seemed to have
fewer difficulties. Universal's own people admitted that they had opened
and tested/verified each unit sold. While the distributor, Lextronix,
seemed to have trouble keeping Universal supplied, while SA, Heartland,
Damark and other discount outlets seemed to be blowing them into the
streets at will.

There is a lot about this radio that has never been adequately
explained by Lextronix. Why Universal, Grove and other reputable radio
dealers had trouble getting their hands on them, while SA had so many of
them in store rooms that they discontinued accepting shipments, is only
one. Others include the more than deceptive marketing, which included
direct mail pieces claiming that the radio was actually designed by
Grundig engineers, when it wasn't (Grundig not only had no part in this
radio, they actually refused to acknowledge it. And one Grundig engineer
who regularly participated on one of the Grundig/Satellit discussion
groups of which I was a member actually called it an embarrassment to
the name.) One direct mail piece I received claimed that Sat 800, was in
fact, a German radio. I sent that one back to Lextronix with a big red
circle around that claim and instructed them to remove my name from all
mailing lists. (Which, to my surprise, they actually did.) But there
were no corrections in promotional literature. Why information about
this radio has been so jealously guarded, that schematics and service
manuals have not been available from official sources (unlike any other
Grundig product for which service manuals, parts and service information
have been readily available), is another question that's never been
answered. Break an antenna, get a replacement? Try that one sometime.

Why Radio Nederland was never able to get a factory sample for
evaluation afer being promised publicly that they would (remember
Sundstrom had to purchase not one, but two, at retail from SA to finally
get a review written), and yet, Larry
(endorse-it-before-the-prototype-has-been-produced) Magne got not one,
but three of them at a time from the factory, all hand tweaked, for not
one, not two, but THREE evaluations, for a total of NINE receivers. From
the factory. But no other reviewer was countenanced by Lextronix on this
product.

And there are more questions. But these alone paint a picture of a
product that's more mystery than substance under the hood. Why, in fact,
has so much been made about Drake's involvement in SAT 800, but nowhere
does the name of Drake appear in any of the direct mail pieces, or
advertising. And no one, even inside Drake, can actually explain what
Drake's involvement was. One person here, reported a conversation with a
Drake employee who said that Drake's involvement was in the design and
licensing of the sync detector, and no more. Another post here detailed
a conversation with a Drake technician who said that the total
involvement was a couple of conversations about the IF strip of SW-8.
But definitive information is still missing. That's not true of any
other product mentioned here.

Hell, anyone can call someone at ICOM and get detailed information,
even parts, even full documentation on their products, at will. But this
radio, produced under so many deceptions, remains a mystery. With only
marketing department smoke and mirrors consistently available to the
public.

Rarely has so much passion been on display about a product that so
few people know so little about, with such a history of substandard
quality.

Yes, I remember the arguments. I remember them well. Amused by them,
in fact. Because they were SO fierce, in wake of the overwhelmingly
deceptive marketing of this product. They remind me of the arguments we
had in a World Religion class I recently took. A lot of fierce passion
and faith. And a whole lot of ignoring any perspective other than our own.

As someone said at the beginning, it's real clear that Marketing is
driving this train. That the company that claims to have produced this
radio has neither an engineering department, nor a manufacturing
facility, and has so obscured the lineage of the product that the only
thing that users are really buying for their $500 or so, is the
advertising.

Now specifically: the external power supply change is not a
production change. The external power supply is not really part of the
radio, as much as it's an accessory. They changed to a different
model/vendor for the external power supply. And it was made available to
any purchaser. That's not a production change to the radio.

There have been reported that some of the Drake refurbished models
were modified to be different than production models, with changes made
by Drake in the shop. Some Drake technicians have supported this claim.
Specifics seem always to be lacking when pressed as to what those
changes actually are. Always 'to bring them up to current production' is
the claim. But that's something you hear about ANY product in for
refurbishment. It's standard Marketing Mantra 1-1A. A appeasement. But
at Lextronix, insiders are admitting that there have been no changes
to production, with the single exception of the bearings on the tuning
shaft. Now, Drake technicians would be able to make modifications to SAT
800 models in for refurbishment, in the same way that they were able to
make modifications to their own radios. After all, SAT 800 is reputed to
be a clone of SW-8. This after Drake engineers and technicians have
publicly said that many of the parts that went into SW-8 were out of
production and no longer available, btw. Truth is, that the only thing
that made SW-8 unique was the IF strip, and of that, only the sync
detector. So, while parts for SW-8 may no longer be available, Tecsun,
the actual manufacturer of SAT 800, being experienced in radio design
and manufacture, can easily create their own circuits using parts of
their own selection and tie them into a Drake inspired, if not designed,
IF strip, using a Drake designed sync. Drake's involvement could be
slight, at best. Even peripheral. So it makes sense that Drake techs
would be able to execute mods on incoming SAT 800 models, cleaning up
production errors, and making improvements, all under the heading of
'refurbishment,' and 'bringing performance up to current production.'

Absent specifics, these terms are also meaningless.

And specifics, as always with this radio, are lacking. And yet, a few
consistencies remain, one of which, by the admission of Lextronix' own
people as reported in this group by more than one who have had contact
with persons on the inside at Lex, the only change was the tuning shaft
bearings, and another, that the so called 'Third Generation' was a
marketing appellation that came from a e-Bay vendor.

In this light, arguments about SAT 800 fall, again, into the same
class as the arguments this week over Bush, elections, Iraq and
religion: A lot of passion and faith, while ignoring any position that's
not our own.

You'd think, for the kind of money that's being spent here, there
would be more critical thinking. And that the vacuum created by
questions unanswered would not be so readily filled with marketing
slogans and 'handling' remarks.


You'd think.