In over 40 years as a ham and over 15 years as a participant in various ham and non-ham internet forums, until now I have never said an unkind word about anyone. It truly pains me to write this about a fellow ham and EMEer, but potential customers of this man need to be warned.
Bouke Zwerver PA0ZH advertised for sale on the Moon Net EME mailing list a kilowatt GS-35b amp for 70 cm with a complete internal Bird wattmeter. It was said to be one year old and in 100% working condition. I bought the amp and paid him an extra 100 EUR for 2 internal T/R switching relays and connectors.
The amp arrived here in Slovakia with a tilted plate cavity (it was not secured to its base), with 17 of the 20 screws for the cabinet cover missing, with no slug for the Bird meter, and with a Load control that did not move the loading capacitor (the control was attached to the capacitor by a series of gears, but the gears did not move when the control was turned). I emailed Bouke 3 times and asked where was the slug, no response. He did reply to my query about the Load control, he said, "Don't worry about that, it is already set for a 50 ohm load."
Several days later, after the 70cm antenna was raised, I connected the amp to the rig and the antenna. Without even turning the amp on, I noticed that the pass-through circuitry in the amp dropped the output from my FT-847 from 50 watts to under 20 watts. I turned on the amp, applied 5 watts of drive, and tuned up the amp as instructed by Bouke - no output at all. Two experienced Slovak hams came over to my shack to try to diagnose the problem - no success. We eventually were able to get 200 watts out but the amp oscillated when more drive was applied.
Bouke responded to my emails with ugly rants about how dumb and imcompetent I must be, and how it must be all my fault that the amp was "blown up." He said I had asked many "so many stupid and simple questions" on Moon Net, which supposedly proved I could not be taken seriously. When I advised that there was only 20 watts out even with the amp turned off, he said this was "impossible," even though I sent him a video to prove it. When I advised that Slovak hams had checked the amp, he insulted them as "village people" and said I was stupid to allow "Slovak blacksmiths" to touch it. He asked me to try a couple of tests, such as bypassing the relays and connecting the input directly to the cavity input, and then connecting the antenna directly to the cavity output. I did everything he suggested and reported the results, he said I must have done it wrong and asked me to repeat the same tests.
I had enough and asked politely for a refund, either a full refund and I would return the amp to him, or a partial refund and I would resell the amp in "as is" condition to someone else. He refused and rejected all my efforts to reach a fair compromise solution. I am taking him to court.
Anyone considering buying anything from this gentleman, proceed with caution.
73, Bill NZ5N/OM3BD
BEWARE bad seller - Bouke Zwerver PA0ZH
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As of Dec 9, 2013: ONLY BUYERS AND SELLERS directly involved with a transaction can post here. Do not post replies in any topic if you are not the buyer or seller in the transaction being discussed! If you believe you can help the buyer or seller, please use the Private Message system to communicate with them. NOTE: if you have been scammed by someone pretending to be a ham, please post in the Scammer Reports forum instead. See viewtopic.php?f=2&t=136 for additional rules.
As of Dec 9, 2013: ONLY BUYERS AND SELLERS directly involved with a transaction can post here. Do not post replies in any topic if you are not the buyer or seller in the transaction being discussed! If you believe you can help the buyer or seller, please use the Private Message system to communicate with them. NOTE: if you have been scammed by someone pretending to be a ham, please post in the Scammer Reports forum instead. See viewtopic.php?f=2&t=136 for additional rules.