When I worked for Electronic Center (ECI) in MSP during my college undergrad
years circa 1978-79-80 ish We were a fairly large Eimac dealer. That is as
Eimac dealers went in those days. I've mentioned this before on here. We
had to constantly inventory tubes and track their shelf histories.
If I remember correctly, The Eimac warranties allowed for 18 months sitting
on the shelf before being put into service, and/or 1 year in service.
Tom if I am off correct me.
When tubes were expiring we sent them back to Eimac for credit. I have no
idea what they did with them. We had many thousands of bucks worth of tubes
sitting there on the shelves waiting for radio stations to need
replacements. We had them pretty big up to 4CX35,000's on occasion. We
only got those when WCCO needed to replace their bottles. The Klystrodes
went out the door usually the same day they came in too. I got to handle
one of those IN THE BOX, hahaha. Oh yeah big bucks.
But we had 4CX10000's, 3CX2500's and in the ham ranks we stocked 3-500's,
572B's, 811A's an 8877, 4CX1000's and I stocked 4CX1500's because we were
replacing tubes in 30S-1's. I already mentioned my hate letter from Collins
regarding this practice hahahaha threatening my certification and saying
they would nuke peoples warranties etc. Yeah like at $8800 we were selling
new 30S-1's HAHAHAHA
Management came to us in the ham department while I was still there and
asked if we should keep the line (We said yeah) and did for a couple more
years. But after I left they did it again.
Well.. This time they didn't fight one bit (ECI that is) when Richardson
stole all of the business. It was an easy sell for Richardson's to approach
EIMAC and say, hey we are already the worlds largest distributor and we know
you are dying taking tubes back. Let us take over all of the business...
I had already left ECI for my first job out of the U. But I still got to
read the letter from EIMAC. We had to buy like a $100K bucks to stay in
business as their reps. With a Klystrode sale every 5 years that wasn't
going to happen. I had given the radio station sales guy a pep talk about
keeping the tube line a couple years before.. POOF GONE.
I got the call from my partner in crime who was still at ECI and I did end
up buying 3 8877's and some sockets before they shipped em back... I think
that was in 82 or 83... Well the tubes were still 82 code dates I couldn't
complain I got them at Employee cost about $450 bucks each.
No more everything was full price at Richardson's no more good deals on
tubes. We had had a good relationship with Richardson's back when we were a
dealer and could get product from them when we needed it fast... But after
we shut down the line that was it. No more deals.
Burn them down.
BOB DD
-----Original Message-----
From: amps-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:amps-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Tom W8JI
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 9:05 AM
To: Bill Fuqua
Cc: Amps Amps
Subject: Re: [Amps] tubes??
Here's some history about Richardsons:
In 1991, the Company settled an antitrust suit with the U.S.
Department of
Justice related to its participation in the electron tube
manufacturing
industry. As a consequence, certain of its manufacturing
activities became
uneconomic and were divested or discontinued, including the
sale of the
Company's former Brive, France manufacturing operation to
local management.
Formal transfer of ownership occurred in January 1995. Under
an evergreen
agreement, the Company and Covimag negotiate a purchase
commitment on an
annual basis. Covimag is managed by the same individuals
previously employed
by the Company at this facility. Covimag is highly dependent
on Richardson,
which is its primary customer. Settlement of purchases under
the contract is
at standard terms. Except for the supply contract,
Richardson has no other
financial commitment to or from Covimag. Relationships under
the supply
contract are believed by the Company to be satisfactory.
You can see they got bit by the Justice Department **after**
they ruined the tube market. This is where Cetron went, and
why 572B's went through the roof on price. Richardsons
bought Cetron and owned Amperex and the tube manufacturing
in France.
They also bought all the distribution outlets in competetion
with them, making them a sole source.
http://www.secinfo.com/darJ3.5f89d.htm
Like the USA televison and VCR manufacturing industry, our
own government as typical did far too little far too late.
The US Justice Department made them "sell" their
manufacturing (to employees loyal to Richardsons) but
stupidly allowed a distributorship contract. Eimac even
foolishly signed a deal with Richardsons making Richardsons
the sole distributor of their products.
IMO it is still illegal.
73 Tom
_______________________________________________
Amps mailing list
Amps@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
_______________________________________________
Amps mailing list
Amps@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
|