For some reason, gmail has been shunting some list messages to my spam folder. Not all, just some, and I have yet to figure it out, so forgive any late replies. It seems that gmail doesn't like yahoo addresses. Protostar's products are top-notch- their disaster is customer service, and the critics are fully justified in that area. "Patience" isn't the issue in light of their track record. The difference between them and the astro cottage industry of old is that Novak, Coulter, et al, would answer the phone and give you an honest answer. If shipment was months off, they'd tell you. If they were waiting on raw materials and had no idea, they'd tell you that, too. Protostar has demonstrated that they won't communicate at all, or give out fictitious ship dates just to end a conversation. I was given a "for sure" ship date twice- told my item was actually on the shipping table, ready to box up and ship in a matter of a day or two- and months later, it still hadn't left the factory. And yet I was willing to keep on waiting. My order was ultimately cancelled just because I mentioned my long wait on a CN thread, with many others who also endured long waits and no communication. I didn't ask Bryan to cancel, he decided on his own to "punish" me, I suppose. Another customer service blot on his record. The difference between the old days and now is integrity. Honesty goes a long way. I remember the old days too, but those vendors never outright lied to customers or refused to even talk to them, from my experience. Ultimately somebody will drive the "ship when I want to" people out of business, with a similar high-quality product line, and do it by just being honest with their customers, even if they aren't much faster. On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 11:34 AM, daniel turner <outwest112@yahoo.com>wrote:
In many ways the modern world and Amazon has spoiled us. When we order something on line we expect a giant warehouse full of staff somewhere but that's not what happens in the amateur telescope building world. Almost all these operations are run from a garage with very little staff and almost no profit. These guys are in it for love, not money and you need to be patient.
It's been that way for a very long time whether it was mirrors from Coulter in the '80s or a telescope from Discovery in 2000 or even a diagonal and spider from Novak was back in the 70's. All these guys left me hanging for several weeks, even months but the wait was ultimately worth it because the product that was finally shipped turned out to be fantastic.
I would invite the numerous cyber critics to go into business for themselves in this field and see if they can compete on customer service, quality of product, and price. I doubt if they could.
DT