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Reviews For: Willco Electronics

Category: Amateur Radio Equipment Repair

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Review Summary For : Willco Electronics
Reviews: 28MSRP:
Description:
Ham equipment repair

March 2022: Retired and no longer doing repairs.
Product is not in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00284.5
N9KTW Rating: 2020-12-21
ICOM 71A memory service Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I had an ICOM R71A, which I was in the process of selling to a friend. Long story short, I did a partial re-cap, and went to change the RAM battery, and installed it BACWARDS.

Called Jack at about 3 PM on Staruday, and he answered the phone and was happy to help me. We met in person on Sunday (with CO-VID limitations), and he had me up an running in a matter of minutes!

Jack went (in my opinion)ABOVE and BEYOND ! The radio works fine, and its new owner is delighted.

Again a very big THANK YOU to Jack! I couldnt have asked for more!
W9AC Rating: 2019-09-12
Outstanding. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Time known: 46 years. I first met Jack in 1973 at a Joliet Amateur Radio Society (JARS) club meeting. I was in Junior High School then and recall that he was teaching op-amp theory to the club well before these devices became popular with circuit designers. Jack maintains a very well-equipment lab and workshop. I can emphatically state that Jack knows what he's doing.
KG9H Rating: 2019-09-12
Excellent Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Willco gets all the radios that I cannot fix. He has always completed the repair and then touched up the calibration where needed.
KC9LOO Rating: 2015-02-03
Great Work Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My old Icom 737 was starting to show signs of age. So I contacted Jack and made arrangements for him to work on it. He did a complete alignment and replaced those very difficult to reach, display bulbs.
Excellent work and very reasonable price.
NJ9T Rating: 2014-11-09
Great Service Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I dropped my Icom 746 off needing the display power supply repaired. Jack had it repaired and also repaired a few other things that were found. He had pictures of before and after and the price was very reasonable. I live 2 hours away, so no shipping and this is the second time he has worked on one of my radios. Turn around time was less than a week.
WV8BOB Rating: 2014-08-15
Thumbs Up Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I thought I only needed one OLED Display replaced in my FTDX5000. Didn't want to ship to Yaesu and pay close to $500 for the repair. Instead I contacted Jack and ask for is assistance in doing the repair. He agreed and did an excellent job. Got the radio back in a very reasonable time period. Jack even went the extra mile with my repair in that I only wanted one display replaced and was not aware that the other two were also losing their brightness. He called and told me about what he was seeing. He was willing to order the other two OLED's from Yaesu for me and install them for only an additional $30, plus the cost of the parts. Thank you so much for helping me out. GREAT JOB
W8RMV Rating: 2013-01-18
Courteous response Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I asked for some help with a repair & Jack took the time to answer my question along with an apology for a late reply. Now that is the kind of repair shop I'd like to deal with. Thank you! - Bob
W4IDW Rating: 2012-01-06
TS-940 Resurrection Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Send him a gorgeous TS-940Sat with low output. After about 2 months, I got a call from him, all is repaired, all is well, rig has full output now, and the repair was very reasonable. He even charged me for less hours of labor that he actually performed on the radio!. Great guy to work with over the phone too!
KF4NC Rating: 2011-11-04
FT890 Repair Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Bought the radio used and it worked fine about 3 months. Then on that 91st day, I keyed the mic and smoked the unit. I called Jack at Wilco, and he said ship it to him, however, there was a backlog of about 7-8 weeks. No problem. Shipped the unit, he replaced 2 driver transitors on the PA board along with a resistor, gave it a once over tune up, and shipped it back. He was good as his word on the agreed amount of time it would take for the repair. The radio is back up and running. Could not have asked for better service. Plus he took his time with me on the phone.
K9CTB Rating: 2011-10-19
Yaesu System 600 Repair. Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This review is very late, but I felt obligated to include it because of the good experience I had through Willco Electronics.

I had an FT-600 which I used and relied heavily on for MARS work, when it developed a distinct "crackling" noise on SSB. At the time, I was very new to the System 600 way of doing business, which is by way of shorting blocks to make use of the VFO, enable memory channels, etc. Most of my work with the '600 was on USB. The "crackling" got progressively worse until it was constantly about S9+40 on the meter - average! I tried to troubleshoot on my own and got nowhere. I sent the rig to another service facility (I won't name them here) and got it back 2 weeks later with a note that they "couldn't reproduce the symptoms". WHAT?? It was as clear as the nose on my face! What part of "crackle" didn't you hear? :) I called a second service center who told me, "Sure. We'll look at it if you have the service manual." Uh, no -- I don't. Click! Well to shorten the story, I called Willco and described the rig and the trouble and the fellow on the other end responded with, "We CAN fix your rig!" That's all I needed to know. I shipped the '600 to Willco and within 2 weeks - can't remember exactly - I got a call back. They found the trouble. It was the SSB crystal filter (I *THINK* the '600 only uses one), and they were awaiting receipt of the part. Within another week I had a working FT-600 on my bench. Far as I'm concerned, these folks know what they're doing, and I would recommend them - or send one of my rigs - again if the need arises. The price for parts was reasonable and the labor - well - it didn't take them long at all. As an engineer/technician myself, I know there are problems that can kick anyone in the behind. I've had two wires stump me before (go ahead and laugh, till it happens to you! :) ). It would be difficult for me to rate anyone who has provided technical service for me at less than "5", because servicing electronic gear is such a subjective thing. Then there's parts. And QA. etc, etc. But Willco imho deserves a solid 5.

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Earlier 5-star review posted by K9CTB on 2007-09-27

I sent them my Yaesu FT-600 because of a constant very loud - S9+40 or so - static regardless of band. Even when the radio was sitting still. Ran the AGC up so high the receiver was unusable. I feared the worst, because I had already checked for the obvious "loose connection". No self-respecting ham will EVER send a rig in for a service he can do himself! (You have to be careful here because some service centers have separate price scales for "fixing it" and "fixing it when you 'fixed' it first") I remember calling Willco and explaining the problem. I remember the gentleman's response as clear as if it was yesterday: "I can fix it." I thought "Man, THAT is confidence!" So I boxed it up and shipped it. Sure enough, Willco discovered a bad filter. Again, I feared the worst (how much is my heart gonna stand?) - and thought the filter wouldn't be available. He found one! It was returned to me in perfect operating condition. I highly recommend them/him. I wanted to note again that Willco is known for Icom expertise, and I sent him a Yaesu, which didn't present a problem at all. I also shipped the FT-600 in my Icom 718 box (they are almost the same profile). For the last time, I feared the worst (I took a heart pill) - that I would not get my box back. Willco took the time to pack the rig gently in the Icom box and box it again with additional packing. The rig and box arrived as new. The last guy I remember giving me service like this was Clifford. For those of you who know Cliff, that says it all.