RCA F38310 38" 16:9 HDTV with Built-In DirecTV and HDTV Receivers
RCA Thomson: WORST warranty service I've ever experienced
Bought RCA F38310-YX5 HDTV from Somerville MA Circuit City in mid-November of 2002. Upon delivery, unit never worked properly. Primary complaint is that built-in internal satellite receiver fails in locking signal intermittently and unit repeatedly blows dish LNB receivers (this TV has a built in satellite receiver). Called last April for service and was directed to &quot;Stereo Component Services&quot;, in Boston, MA. They came out to service the TV and told me that the problem was my dish. Replaced dish and LNBs, but problem remained and continued to get worse over time until receiver was completely unusable. <br />Called for service again on June-28. Stereo Component Services came out and saw the problem, determined that the receiver (DM-1) unit was the cause, and then the owner (Frank) proceeded to call me once per week over four weeks requesting the model number of my TV over and over again. They sent another tech (David) to come out and look at the TV after four weeks and he removed the receiver unit from my television, leaving it completely dark.<br />After another two weeks of no service and no TV I called the Thompson Complaint line (580-634-0151), speaking with &quot;Larry&quot;. He assigned me a case number of 0211133574 and assigned the complaint to agent &quot;Tiffany&quot;.  They then proceeded to send out two of the wrong receivers to Stereo Component Services (according to the owner), and on the third try sent out the appropriate unit. The owner just installed the new receiver unit today, September 5. The TV still doesn't work. It has the same problem, being unable to lock on a good satellite signal, as before - indicating that the receiver wasn't the original problem. <br />Please note that I have a second external SDTV satellite receiver, one that I can use to test the output from the dish. According to the external receiver, the dish and LNB's are sending out a strong signal, ruling out the dish as the culprit. <br />Finally, Frank (the owner of Stereo Component Services), saw that the satellite receiver wasn't working and simply left saying that he had to go to another site, leaving me with a broken TV and no confirmation that he knew the problem persisted. I could not be more unhappy with Stereo Component Services. I am also unhappy with the Thompson services center as they haven't resolved my problem, nor do they seem willing to meet their contractual responsibilities as defined in the warranty contract. <br />I know this may be more info than most wanted to read, but I thought some might be interested in just how bad a service call with RCA and their authorized service agents can get. I've kept a log of my calls with both Stereo Component Services and RCA over the last 10 weeks and now have a large notebook filled with notes. am thoroughly dissatisfied with both SCS and RCA. Don't know where to go to next, other than to post this in order to save others the trouble in the future.