More on the export of Heralds to Hong Kong.
The excellent article by Rafael Serrano about his trip to Hong Kong in 1966, I like to say my experiences on the export of Heralds to that city.
As I told in another article in the summer of 1965 I traveled to Hong Kong to try to sell phones to the Hong Kong Telephone Company. Then the city was a British colony, was about 4 million inhabitants (of which only 1% were non-Chinese), and prices were generally quite low. (You could eat in a restaurant first class for the equivalent of about 300 pesetas, including French wine.) Possibly due to beginner's luck, the fact is that the convinced and made an order of 85,000 units in various colors (including black, which gave many molding problems.) The delivery was due to perform before the end of the year, so that worked against the clock works and the problems that I have already told in the article on the Herald. Were sent out by sea through the Suez Canal.
In July of 1966 I traveled to Colombia to sell phones at the Bogota Telephone Company. Around the corner, and since had to spend several hours in Madrid to join up with the Madrid-Malaga flight, I used to go to Madrid to tell Cites Alfredo Remon (who had just joined the company as Director of Marketing) as had been the things in Bogotá. Nothing else to see me told me he had a telex from Hong Kong saying that the Heralds are breaking the frame. I replied that this was not possible, since they were molded in ABS. In fact, one of my arguments volume was back onto the Herald and jump on it, with my 80 kg. It is bordered something but did not break. So I thought you were confused with similar devices from other manufacturers using polystyrene instead of ABS. Remon told to request a sample frame broken. A week later he called Remon from Madrid and said he had received the sample and that was ours and was effectively broken. ITT ITTE intervened and New York. To study the case from New York sent an expert in plastics (Dr. Thornton) with whom I went to Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow (about 50 km. North of London). There, experts studied the case and said that migration was plasticizer, which degraded the characteristics of the ABS, as well explained Rafael Serrano. At first, I confess that to me it sounded like science fiction. To assess the situation our president, Mariano Gomez Mira, Remon and I decided that we were going to Hong Kong.
When we arrived (July 1966) had stored the phones in a warehouse in Transelectronics factory without air conditioning and heat and humidity of Hong Kong. The atmosphere was almost unbearable. The plasticizer dribbled down the frame, which was broken as if made of cheese Burgos. Then we learned that migration is enhanced by heat and pressure, and the case was that pasachasis developed to cover the output of telephone wires, to prevent the entry of roaches, exerted strong pressure on the frame and were molded with plasticizer migration. Remon and I did a sampling of the phones and found that:
1) Virtually all racks were broken.
2) Many bells were not working due to the presence of iron particles in the air gap.
3) Some cell showed signs of rust on some parts.
Remon was decided to return to Spain and I wait in Hong Kong on arrival of the Chief Engineer of Standard Electrical Appliance, and then in Malaga Engineering had not. Of course, to use the time, Gomez Mira told me came as José Luis de L'Hotellerie (Head of Equipment Engineering) I left the Philippines, where he was studying the possible export of Heralds. Back from Manila and now with L'Hotellerie in Hong Kong negotiate with the telephone company in Hong Kong on how to proceed. It was found that the phones returned to Manchester was not feasible because of time, so it was decided to send someone to organize the repair and at the same time, sent from Málaga, the necessary parts.
Back in Malaga, Santiago Armisén thought the right person to carry out the repair, and at the same time ensuring the quality of the equipment was repaired Rafael Serrano. So I called his office and reported it. I was there and I remember that, as Rafael said in his article, he said it would be a matter of "two or three weeks."
When Serrano had been in Hong Kong about two months, Gomez Mira decided to see how things were going and told me to go with him. Certainly, one day I called his office and said, "Look Martínez, as we together you'll travel with me first." I had not time to sit in my chair when I called back: "Do you know the price difference between first and tourist? ". I replied: "Something like £ 500,000." "Well, it's something else, so we will travel in economy." "Do not worry, you travel in first and I will be in tourist." But he insisted that we were both in economy. As I said in another article, the planes were much smaller then than now, and in tourist space was tiny, so nearly 24 hours by plane became very hard. Especially if you were no longer young, for Look Gómez. Moreover, the storm had trouble flying in one of the scales, so we got to Hong Kong on 4 hours of delay. The airport was
Serrano waiting. I guess because of the anger which was there for so long, augmented by the long wait at the airport, the first thing he told Gomez Mira was: "When I go to Manchester?".
arrived to the hotel (the Hilton), and Mira Gomez said he would rest a little and that we waited in my room. When we were alone I told Serrano: "How have you been so Gomez Mira?". "I'm just very tired of being here, I was told it would be two or three weeks, and took two months and much work remains. In addition, to try to finish as soon as I'm working 12 hours a day, including Saturdays, unpaid overtime. On the other hand, being here is costing me money, because in Malaga was overtime. " After a while Mira Gomez called and told me to come to his room. The first thing I said was his dissatisfaction with the attitude of Serrano at the airport. I explained the reasons and asked me, "Martinez you believe that you are actually working overtime?" "I doubt" I said, "but if you have questions, ask Transelectronics because they know the hours is there. " "No need to ask anything, on my return to Madrid fix the issue of hours of Serrano." During the stay
Gomez Mira, Serrano and I went hungry as a boy puppy, because it was the type of person who has eaten a sandwich, so the day she left we rushed to go to a French restaurant (Le Trou Normand) to get even.
As Rafael has in its letter, had organized a string of disassembly, repair, assembly, inspection with the Chinese girls. View and, above all, hear them work was a poem. For example, the team leader said to Raphael: "This is bad tim-ba." (It seems that tim-ba is "phone" in Chinese). And so, in a English-Chinese-English, they understood. In short, Rafael did a great work, but became "hard time."
I never went back to Hong Kong to nearly 20 years later (like a title of Dumas), and then things in Hong Kong had changed dramatically. Now it was they who produced phones, prices had soared and the skyscrapers had proliferated.
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