OTA: Quebec & Atlantic Canada Parts, Sales, Service, Installers

[stampeder]

Hi, check the OTA Local Installers/Parts/Sales/Service thread for more Quebec supplier info:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=23984

[Knight]

Hi!

Originally Posted by ladylay

An email to Raybel today gave a negative reply as to the availability of any channelmaster ( 7775 or 7777) amp, in or around Montreal.

You actually got a reply from them??? They still haven't replied to an email I sent 2 weeks ago...

Bah, I guess they might have had some problems with their emails... Which email address did you use, the info@ or another?

Thanks!

Nick

[ladylay]

I went there first, and was told by Jacques that if I needed to email them, send to indm@raybel.com .

sorry for late reply, I was away for the week-end.

Couldn't find any Channel Master pre-amp in Burlington VT over the week-end, anyone knows if another channelmaster dealer carries them in Montreal? Looking for 7775 or 7777.

[Knight]

Originally Posted by ladylay

I went there first, and was told by Jacques that if I needed to email them, send to indm@raybel.com .

Thanks, that's good to know!

Couldn't find any Channel Master pre-amp in Burlington VT over the week-end,

Lowes is supposed to carry CM products but it looks like there's no Lowes in Vermont. Ace & True Value stores are supposed to have them too... There's no mention if they carry all of them and if they have them in stock though...

anyone knows if another channelmaster dealer carries them in Montreal? Looking for 7775 or 7777.

Did Raybel give any reason why they don't have them anymore?

If it's volume then maybe if we could organize a group buy of some sort I would be interested (as long as I can find somebody to install it on my tower, I'm afraid of heights... )

Thanks and have a nice day!

Nick

[ladylay]

Went to Ace in Colchester, they only had an old distribution amp from CM.

As for Raybel, the only info I got was that they had close to 40 CM4228 antennas on order, since more than 8 months. Looks like CM doesn't deliver. Why? No idea. Did Raybel pay their last invoice from CM? Just asking, as I've seen this happening before, where I worked. Some businesses like to wait past 90 days, or even 120+ , to pay their suppliers. And then they are surprised when they can't order anymore unless it's COD. I'm not implying anything here about Raybel, just that 2 of my former employers were playing that kind of game, until they got into real trouble.

It was my first visit to that store and to be honest, I found it to be quite disorganized. You almost trip on boxes, everywhere. Needs a huge cleanup. I wonder how they can find anything in their mess. Example, they had a Sharpshooter in a box, backstore,they had no idea how much it costs and since when it was there.Too bad, because staff is nice and very helpful. They seem to be understaffed too. Phone was ringing all the time and the two guys couldn't cope. It's sad, they could be much more succesfull, with just a little help or willingness, either.


Not badmouthing, just the facts.

[poncho@home]

I was just in this store(Laval) and they have OTA equipment

http://www.montcalmelectronique.com/enlocal.htm

[vw4life]

Originally Posted by ladylay

Went to Ace in Colchester, they only had an old distribution amp from CM.

As for Raybel, the only info I got was that they had close to 40 CM4228 antennas on order, since more than 8 months. Looks like CM doesn't deliver. Why? No idea. Did Raybel pay their last invoice from CM? Just asking, as I've seen this happening before, where I worked. Some businesses like to wait past 90 days, or even 120+ , to pay their suppliers. And then they are surprised when they can't order anymore unless it's COD. I'm not implying anything here about Raybel, just that 2 of my former employers were playing that kind of game, until they got into real trouble.

It was my first visit to that store and to be honest, I found it to be quite disorganized. You almost trip on boxes, everywhere. Needs a huge cleanup. I wonder how they can find anything in their mess. Example, they had a Sharpshooter in a box, backstore,they had no idea how much it costs and since when it was there.Too bad, because staff is nice and very helpful. They seem to be understaffed too. Phone was ringing all the time and the two guys couldn't cope. It's sad, they could be much more succesfull, with just a little help or willingness, either.


Not badmouthing, just the facts.

You got Raybel all wrong. Don't deal with them too often but when I do, they are great. Far better than Addison...can't stand the know-it-all employees of Addison and it always takes half an hour for someone to help you out.

When I went to raybel in the month on June, they had 3 4228's in stock. Wasn't yet planning my installation so I decided to wait. Big mistake. Went back in mid-sept and they didn't have anymore.

They are waiting for new ones to arrive. But was informed that apparently CM was sold to another company and they are having trouble supplying the demand. I actually called back toady and they still have no news about the CM and are tried to find them by other means.

[vw4life]

Originally Posted by poncho@home

I was just in this store(Laval) and they have OTA equipment

http://www.montcalmelectronique.com/enlocal.htm

Do you know if they carry the CM 4228?

[Knight]

[BTW, we should probably continue this in the installers thread (or maybe a moderator (Stampeder) move this there please)...]

I'm willing to give Raybel the benefit of the doubt... As for the "inventory problem" I worked in a store many years ago and there some things I could not give a price without first checking with the boss and this was especially true if we had the item for a while..

Originally Posted by vw4life

They are waiting for new ones to arrive. But was informed that apparently CM was sold to another company and they are having trouble supplying the demand.

According to CM's site, that was almost 3 years ago (November 2003)...

I actually called back toady and they still have no news about the CM and are tried to find them by other means.

If they could assure me that they could get them soon (and recommend an installer) I would be ready to make a down payment (I hope I'm using the right expression) on a CM4228, CM7777 and CM9521a.

Have a nice day!

Nick

[Knight]

Originally Posted by vw4life

Do you know if they carry the CM 4228?

They don't list Channel Master as one of their suppliers but the rotor/rotator and control they show on one of their pages looks like a CM9521a

Nick

[ladylay]

Originally Posted by vw4life

You got Raybel all wrong. Don't deal with them too often but when I do, they are great. Far better than Addison...can't stand the know-it-all employees of Addison and it always takes half an hour for someone to help you out.

When I went to raybel in the month on June, they had 3 4228's in stock. Wasn't yet planning my installation so I decided to wait. Big mistake. Went back in mid-sept and they didn't have anymore.

They are waiting for new ones to arrive. But was informed that apparently CM was sold to another company and they are having trouble supplying the demand. I actually called back toady and they still have no news about the CM and are tried to find them by other means.

I wrote they are very good people there, and that's true. However, not only did Jacques tell me that they were not expecting any 4228 anytime soon and that those were ordered more than 8 months ago, with 23 firm orders, but when I emailed him about the possible availability of a CM7777, he replied: aucun en stock ,actuellement aucune date de livraison. No stock, actually no delivery date!

Doesn't look good!

I agree with you about Addison, particularly the staff part. But at least they got their act together and it's not a messy junkyard anymore. Prices went up drastically though.

Don't get me wrong about Raybel, VW4life.

Reality in retail business is: get the product people want to buy, sell it at the proper price point, and give aftersales service, so customers come back. Unfortunately, Raybel fails on the first one. I'm not angry, I'm sad.

Bernard

PS: I just called Montcalm in Laval, and they do not carry CM, they carry Winegard...

Still looking to find a cm 7777 in greater Montreal area....

[vw4life]

It seems pretty hard to find any Channel Master in Montreal... When I 1st started to search for the 4228, Raybel was the only distributor I found in Montreal. Now they don't have anymore. So to me it doesn't seem their fault that they can't get any...nobody in Montreal seems to be able to get any.

Hopefully Raybel, or any other store, will have the 4228 soon. I wanted to set it up before winter.

[montrealmountain]

If Montcalm carries Winegard, why not check into the Prostar 8800
http://www.winegard.com/offair/pdf/Pr-8800.pdf

There will probably not be any great difference between 2 competeing 8 bay uhf antennas if they were both produced by quality manufacturers....the PR8800 is all over the place (ebay, etc) from $40 - $60US.

[HDTV4free]

Originally Posted by Knight

Did Raybel give any reason why they don't have them anymore?

If it's volume then maybe if we could organize a group buy of some sort I would be interested (as long as I can find somebody to install it on my tower, I'm afraid of heights... )

I called Addisson a year ago looking for a CM4228 and they told me that they didn't carry them anymore because CM wanted them to stock 10k units. Sounded like BS to me but who knows.

I finally found the CM4228 at Raybel and picked up a 9521A rotator as well. The first 9521A froze up over the XMAS holidays and I had it replaced under warranty. That worked fine until the weather warmed up, rain, then cooled down again. It worked fine again after it warmed in the spring so I'm assuming water got into the mechanism and froze. I slathered high quality silicone grease all over the boot two weeks ago. Fingers crossed that it doesn't freeze up on me again this winter. Your mileage may vary but I'm doubtful I'd ever buy another CM product again.

Anyway, I'm on the south shore of montreal and I pick up CBC and SRC HD when the antenna is pointed north and I get enough off of the backside of the antenna to pull in Mountain Lake PBS digital. I have to rotate the antenna south to pull in VPT digital. I probably should have just picked up two CM4228's and installed them back to back (would have been cheaper too). I have a Sanyo HT30744 with integrated tuner, which seems to work well except that the channel finder on the digital side has no manual mode. So you can't pick a frequency and the rotate the antenna to find a digital signal. You have to rotate the antenna to a particular position and let the TV do its little auto-scan dance, rotate, repeat. The price was decent though so I'm not going to knock it too much.

[Knight]

Originally Posted by HDTV4free

I called Addisson a year ago looking for a CM4228 and they told me that they didn't carry them anymore because CM wanted them to stock 10k units. Sounded like BS to me but who knows.

I've sent (tonight) CM/Andrew an email about the apparent shortage of CM products in the Montréal region... I'm looking forward to getting their side of the story...

I finally found the CM4228 at Raybel and picked up a 9521A rotator as well. The first 9521A froze up over the XMAS holidays and I had it replaced under warranty. That worked fine until the weather warmed up, rain, then cooled down again. ...

This is not very encouraging...

Gee, I think the very very old rotor that I have on the antenna that no longer works still works and never ever did that (it's probably an old CM rotor too as the control I have downstairs was made by CM I believe...)

I'm not sure but I think I once saw a dealer that said they were replacing some parts to make the CM rotors more reliable but I can't remember what they were doing to them and can't seem to find the URL...

Anyway, I'm on the south shore of montreal and I pick up CBC and SRC HD when the antenna is pointed north and I get enough off of the backside of the antenna to pull in Mountain Lake PBS digital. I have to rotate the antenna south to pull in VPT digital.

Do you sometimes get artifacts/lose the signal or is it overall pretty reliable?

I probably should have just picked up two CM4228's and installed them back to back (would have been cheaper too).

That's one of the things I've been wondering... If you install 2 or more antennas and combine them, do you still need to be able to turn one of them from time to time to compensate for the bad weather? My antenna that has a rotor hasn't been working for a while now and I was getting analog signals with it when it was still working so I'm not quite sure if a rotor is needed in that case or not...

BTW, when you turn a CM4228 do you have to turn it a full 360 degrees sometimes or only 180 degrees (it seems to me like it has no front and back so only half a turn would be needed at most)?

Thank you and have a nice day!

Nick