Found out the hard way they do NOT have what they claim to have. They drop ship everythig apparently. Ordered some rope & got it 2 days later. I thought great! I will order some cable & few other itmes. Wish I never had now. Called them 3 days after their so called "available to ship within 24 hours" claim hogwash. Told me they had to wait on supplier for cable. OK I'll wait a day or 2. A few days later they ship my items in 2 shipments. The cable arrives & nothing else. Tracking # just says "Electronic Info Recieved" on items that never showed. Called back, They tell me: "Oh I'll check with shipping again, & you will see it change by days end". A day later, no change. I call again, demand it be shipped or credit my money back. He claims they shipped item & USPS hasn't updated info on tracking #. So I wait another day to make sure its not in mail & nuttin. Called back - cancel my order & credit me back. I do not think the item EVER shipped & they just try to buy time. No way to do bussiness. If you want your items a month later then go fot it, otherwise avoid them like the plague. They are apparently a small time operation acting like a big distributer. Their plsn was to make a nice prety web site & people will come.

I'm done ranting. Hope this prevents others from experiencing the same woes with these goofs.

HS

While it is impossible for any store or distributor to keep everything in stock, after all, they are at the mercy of the suppliers on this, most do a fairly good job.  One that I have had the best luck with, having near 100% of my orders most of the time, is Universal Radio.  www.universal-radio.com

Even when they are occasionally out of stock on something they notify.

I'll for sure go elsewhere from now on.

HS

Three trouble free orders in a row is what constitutes my small sampling, but +1 on universal-radio.com.  My next order will be with them too.

Sudboy  

Gigaparts out of Huntsville, Alabama has very consistently been the lowest priced and fastest shipping on-line ham radio supply.  I use Universal Radio as well, but my go to shop is Gigaparts.  ALSO...  Gigaparts regularly has online promo codes and is constantly running some kind of sale.

-Bru

I second Gigaparts.  Very fast shipping.

Thanks for the heads up

great just ordered coax yest

I ordered a 2m antenna from them. Credit card was charged twice and I had to call three times to get my refund. Was ready to just file a dispute. Antenna showed up after about a week.

+1.

Ham Radio Outlet is another reliable supplier.

Got an email response from them today. Stated they had made a mistake & my item was still in the warehouse. They cancelled & refunded me the purchase amount & apologized. At least I got my money back quickly.




HS

you'd be hard pressed to beat the folks at Main Trading Co in TX

-100  


Universal Radio is off limits in my house- easily some of the most piss-poor customer service I've ever experienced.

I purchased the little Grundig AM/FM radio for my earthquake kit.  The radio showed up OK, but then I had to go TDY  and never got a chance to try it out.  When I got back I powered it up and it was 100% DEAF on AM- the entire band.  I waited a week so I could take it to Seattle where I knew there'd be strong stations- still nothing.

I called Universal and they refused to even exchange it for another one, citing their return policy window.  I explained that I am DOD and had to go TDY, so I never got a chance to test it.  "Tough luck sucker" was pretty much what they said.

So if I cannot trust them to stand behind their $30 products, there's no way I'll ever buy anything expensive from them.  Since that time I've purchased two ham radios and a dozen accessories from hamcity.com.  Universal Radio will NEVER see another dime from me.

He's changing locations again and clearing out a bunch of used stuff.

Just canceled my order.



Ordered Monday





Wed email stated shipping in 24-48hrs





Email today said shipping in 1-3days

 

What SCW is trying to say is that MTC is having a sale.

They don't even have a full line of HF radios. I'll stick with HRO.

Last summer MTC was selling new TM-281s for  ~$120. Some people here called HRO to see if they would price match and HRO said that MTC was selling refurbs. Which they weren't. HRO wouldn't even call MTC

A member here lost a box of radios on a trip. A park ranger found them and called kenwood with the serial numbers. MTC went out of their way to get ahold of the owner from their records.

Last year they gave ARFCOM members a discount coupon for something like 10 or 15%

MTC is a homegrown Texas company who only started a few years ago. Since then they have become on of Kenwoods top dealers. They are family owned and operated.

You missed a part of the Kenwood story.

Because of that story, along with many other things (including that MTC is only about 90 minutes from me) means I'll be making my major radio purchases through MTC.