Notes from the field. My rants raves and frothing at the mouth about this maddening and frustrating buy lovely hobby

... Well maybe...

I spoke to Farrah at Woodland Hills Telescope & Camera today about my order on the LX80 mount with 10" OTA. A wonderful lady by the way and a shop with great customer service. So much so that I don't grumble too badly about the 1 to 1 1/2 hour drive to go 35 miles from my house to their shop on the bloody <many dirty names removed> 101 freeway!

Sorry I digress.

I told her that rumor had it Meade had received a shipment from China and asked somewhat flippantly if she were getting any and if so was my order in the order she received? She scoffed and we both made some jokes about Meade and the LX80 and 800 then I said that I was serious about Meade getting a shipment.

So on the spot she called Carlos at Meade and asked if they (Meade) did get a shipment and if so what was she getting. He told her that her allotment had shipped Wednesday of this week. She said she hadn't gotten any confirmation via email on it and asked him to go to the warehouse to confirm. He did and told her the order was coming via land freight (silly since Meade and her shop are only about 50 miles away and it would be cheaper to have their driver take it over) and again said it should be there Monday. She then asked what he was sending and then asked if any 10's were shipped. The answer was no, no 10" being shipped.

And here in lies an example of why they have gotten and will continue to get my business. She said she was very sorry that they hadn't shipped any 10" kits (not her fault!) but would be happy to give me just the mount and I could wait on the OTA.

Seeing the expression on my face (not keen on this idea) she said she would be willing to give me a very big discount on a Celestron C11 OTA instead though she hadn't seen or worked with the mount herself and didn't know if it would take the C11 so she wasn't sure if that was a good idea. I pointed out that the 10" Meade was 2lbs heavier than the C11 which changed her mind.

She said she couldn't do it at the price of the package for the 10" (If the mount by itself was $800 and the 10" package was $2,000 using old prices that meant the OTA was about $1,200) but she would come as close as she could which she did!

Since I had a very bad experience with FedEx and a used C11 that was damaged in transit that I had to ship back and file claims with my credit card company and Paypal over for a refund I jumped on it!

So if the Telescope god's smile upon me I will go back on Monday to pick up the LX80 mount. If I do get it I will photograph it for you all and if the skies are clear set it up and test it with video of the process.

Oh and if you are in the market for an LX80 she did say that she was getting a combination of mounts and 6"/8" packages and that she had some that were not spoken for...