Poor Customer Service

There are countless examples of good customer service incidences and likewise bad ones as well. I have recently encountered the later on a family ski trip to Squaw Valley.

The first day we arrived it was raining, so we decided to forgo doing any skiing until the next day when the rain was supposed to turn into snow, as it did to the tune of 22 inches.

Both my sons needed to rent ski equipment, so around lunch time I checked to see what time we could get the equipment for the following day from the ski rental shop closest to the cable car. I was told I could pick it up at 3:00pm.

We came back at 2:40pm, as I thought it might take a while to fill in the forms and was told by one of the employees that they would take care of me then because it was so close to 3:00pm. So, I filled out both forms and we were ready to go by 2:45pm.

Then the "manager" entered the scene. He tells me that we cannot rent the equipment until 3:30pm. I responded that I new I was early, but thought it was 3:00pm. Then he said. "OK, 3:00pm, you still have 15 minutes". There was no "I am sorry but you will have to wait sir". In fact, I had already caught him in a fib about the time, and there was no apology about that either. He just turned from me and walked away. If they had been busy it might have been a little more understandable or at least forgivable, but we were the only customers in the room and there were three employees, which ironically were bemoaning the fact that they had only booked around $400.00 that day.

The icing on the cake, was when we heard one of his employees ask this "manager" if they shouldn't help us and he ignored the question and walked away from his employee. I took the completed forms and dropped them in the trash as we headed out the door and back to the hotel room.

I am the worse type of customer when it comes to these instances, unfortunately for businesses most customers fall into this category. I do not yell or complain, thus giving one time to correct the problem (not that I think they would have). I just take my business elsewhere. We went back to the room and I went online and found a ski rental shop that had several location including Tahoe City, it's name was Tahoe Dave's. Both my sons ending up getting Demo packages at about half the cost of the standard package that was offered by Squaw Valley. Also, the customer service at Tahoe Dave's was outstanding. So, for a short 5 mile drive we ended up with better equipment, better service, and a cheaper price. Needless to say, when I return to the Tahoe area I will be going back to Tahoe Dave's.

Manufacturing Improving

The news these days seems to be pretty consistent. The manufacturing sector is improving, as is the economy as a whole. Output is up over last year, the stock market has totally rebounded, and the unemployment rate is down.

This is not news to us here at Electro Technik. As we enter the final month in this fiscal year revenues are significantly higher than they were for the prior year. Some portions of our business have done better than others, but all of our four "Groups" have improved. This is welcomed news, indeed.

The question remains, can it be sustained? Oil prices have started to increase and reach a hundred dollars a barrel mark. Meanwhile, the deficit still remains at record levels.

So, what will the remainder of 2011 hold in store for those of us in manufacturing? We are optimistic, as we think the recovery will continue through this calendar year, But we are keeping our fingers are crossed, just in case.

Rod Resistors Revisited

I met with a gentleman last week who has been an engineer in the RF/microwave industry for a number of years. His knowledge base is very broad in this field.

Anyway, he explained something to me that I knew, but perhaps did not fully understand. He told me that Res-net Microwave, a subsidiary of Electro Technik Industries, was one of the few companies that manufactured rod resistors, and one of even a smaller set them made them AlN. He further explained that Res-net should probably promoting this product line specifically with advertisements and the like, and he was right.

Res-net Microwave does manufacture a complete line of rod resistors for the RF/microwave markets. Below is a Hubpage that was created after our meeting.

Rod Resistors

Rod resistors are a cylindrical type resistor that are used in both RF and microwave applications. They are thin film in nature and can be made of alumina, beryllium oxide, or aluminum nitride.

Because of their thin film construction they can achieve very high frequencies. These frequencies can be as high as 26.5 GHz or even higher in certain applications. Res-net Microwave Inc. is one of the few companies that offer rod resistors in alumina, beryllium oxide, and aluminum nitride materials.

The resistance range for rod resistors is generally from 10 ohms to 500 ohms and the resistive tolerances can be 1%, 2%, or 5%, The temperature range is -65 Degrees Celsius to +175 Degrees Celsius. The resistors are covered with a protective coating of high temperature epoxy to insulate them from these temperature extremes.

In addition to these classic thin film rod resistors, they can also be supplied using pyrolytic carbon. These carbon rod resistors also perform very well at microwave frequencies and have the added advantage of being able to work to the temperature of +200 Degrees Celsius. The sizes of the carbon resistors mimic those for the other thin film types. These carbon rod resistors will have a negative temperature coefficient as compared to the other resistors which will have either a plus or minus 100 ppm TC.

The power ratings can go from 0.050 watts all the way up to 75 watts, depending upon the material used. They are used extensively in the RF/microwave industries especially in the manufacture of other components such as, SMA terminations.

New Advertisements

After acquiring Arizona Capacitors, a manufacturer of wound film capacitors, on the first of this year we have developed our first advertisement for the new Electro Technik subsidiary. It is a little smaller than some of our previous ads we have run for our various companies, but we also went a little more specific when it came to the technical capabilities.

To the right is a sneak preview. It will be running in US Tech magazine and a few other trade publications over the next year or so. We will be revamping all our ads as time permits. A survey was conducted on some of our existing advertisements and we are taking into account these readers' suggestions as we create these new versions.

Passive Components

Passive electronic components are used in all types of electronic circuitry, but are often overlooked in their importance to the operation of the circuit. The passive electronic component stands ready to perform in a circuit when provided an external voltage or current stimulus. The active component, on the other hand, is often part of the power supply providing the stimulus for the passive circuit. Semiconductors are probably the most commonly used active electronic component.

Passive components, like resistors and transformers, are often constructed using resistance wire for resistors and magnet wire for transformers. Various metal foils are often used in wound film capacitor construction.

Another construction method used for metal film resistors and tantalum capacitors is to deposit either metal or dielectric film using vacuum thin film sputtering techniques. Vacuum sputtering is a precise and accurate means of construction. No wire or foil windings are necessary with this type of resistor or capacitor construction.

When ceramic substrates are used and RF or microwave frequency performance is desired, thick film construction of the metal conductors becomes a cost effective method for products like attenuators and terminations.

Thin film construction, while more costly, provides the best performance for RF/microwave resistors since the thin film morphology can be made very homogenous. The created homogenous resistor surface then distributes the applied power very uniformly eliminating hot spots that often lead to poor MTBF’s and early product failures. Since thin film resistors are created using optical masking techniques, very small and accurate resistors can be constructed.

First Entry

This is our first entry to our Electro Technik Industries (ETI) Blog. It has been a busy 6 months for us. We have acquired Arizona Capacitors and Inductive Technologies during this time period. Now we are revamping our website to accommodate these new additions.

Over the course of the past year we have set up Twitter, Facebook, Hubpages, and now Blogger accounts. It is our goal to keep our customers, employees, and stakeholders in general, apprised of any news pertaining to ETI as it transpires.

Thank you for your interest in ETI.