[Amps] 3-500Z Recomendations

[craxd]

I,m gonna go out on a limb here but here goes. Richardson Electronics 
pulls the strings on the Eimac tubes now. They also own the brand names 
Cetron and Amperex. They private label for everyone else too. When you 
get a tube from either, you don't know where it's made at! Knowing how 
Richardson does business, they're all probably from one manufacturer in 
China. I know of one Chinese manufacturer now selling direct here in the 
US who told me they were private labeling the 3-500Z and would not tell 
me to whom! My guess was RF Parts or Richardson. I do know most 
everything you'll get under Cetron is either Russian or Chinese. Now, I 
hate to be hard on Richardson but I know for a fact who they are and how 
they operate. I used to buy 1000's of tubes through their "shady" branch 
years ago from a salesman named Bernie Guss. Bernie, told me everything 
that was going on and who was who in both the legal and illegal 
business. Richardson is the very reason you can not now buy a new 
receiving tube of any type hardly as they were who bought out the GE 
plant down in Owensburogh Kentucky. Myself and two others offered to buy 
out the tube machinery lines for two models of tubes and Richardson flat 
out refused to sell them. I asked the manager what would then happen to 
the equipment. He said," It'll be put up in mothballs with dust settling 
on it", if I recall correctly. This was done purely to raise the price 
on receiving tubes and the price doubled shortly after that. The GE 
plant is now named MPD and Richardson is the proud owner.

What burns me about this, it's nothing but a monopoly, and the US 
government is letting them by with it! Just to put it bluntly, any name 
branded tube in the US, Richardson controls the pricing on. I cant say 
that Merit (RF Parts) buys from them but the tubes in big quantities has 
to come from somewhere. The only glass tube manufacturers that are left 
are in either Russia (Svetlana, Telsa), Yugoslavia (Phillips-EI) and 
China, with China being the prodomanent one. Chinas prodomanence is due 
to one thing, price!

Will Matney


The RF Parts/Taylor ZGs are excellent tubes.  I've had mine nearly two years and they really take a beating!!  I run mine mostly in AM in my Henry 3K-A and they just continue to pump out the power!!  Still getting 2kW PEP from the Henry with ~100W drive...
 
Joe,
N3JI


"R.Measures" <r at somis.org> wrote:

On Oct 1, 2004, at 7:19 PM, Steven Cook wrote:


>> Team,
>>
>> Anyone have data/idea/opinion on currently available 3-500Z fire 
>> bottles. I believe Eimac stooped making them, but have seen the Eimac 
>> part available albeit, at a high price; e.g., $250.00 and up.
>  
>

Eimac 3-500Zs that were manufactured in Salt Lake City in the 1990s 
have a well-deserved reptutation for bad spotwelds in the anode cooler. 
When the welds let go, the anode-cooler will touch the grounded grid. 
The way to test for this problem is to slap the tube down into one's 
palm. If the spotwelds are bad, the anode cooler will bend. I have 
heard of no Chinese metal-anode tube with this problem. Graphite-anode 
tubes have no anode welds, so they can not have this problem.


>>
>> What about the Amprex, Phillips, or Chinese bottles available through 
>> RF Parts, et al?
>>
>> Where is the best place to purchase 3-500Z these days?
>>
>> Should they be a matched pair if going into a TL-922A?
>>
>> Are the graphite plate tubes O.K.?
>>
>> Any comments, criticisms, concerns, attacks, cajoling would be 
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Steve
>> WG7K
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>>
>>
>  
>
Richard L. Measures, AG6K, 805.386.3734. www.somis.org