[Amps] Update on Tube Sources

[John Lyles]

The info below was pulled from the Oct. 2, 2004 Archives of this list. 
Here is a 10 year later update to this:
1) Amperex/Covimag plant in France has ceased making tubes, including 
glass 4-400, 3-500 types.
2) CPI/Eimac has shut down San Carlos and relocated to the Palo Alto 
plant with klystrons and IOTs. They reduced their in-house engineering 
and application support for grid tubes to minimal technical content, 
mostly sales. There are no new tube types being developed unless it is 
to support their microwave devices business.
3) Thales does not produce glass tubes.
4) Most if not all glass transmitting tubes are from China now.
What a difference a decade made....
Happy Holidays,
John
K5PRO


>The Amperex glass tubes sold by Richardson Electronics are made by Covimag in France. For example, their 3-500 and 4-400 sized tubes.While it does seem that REL
> has their fingers in a lot of vacuum tube manufacturers, there are still independent companies out there. You can still buy direct from CPI/Eimac and get
 >engineering support - but not glass tubes anymore. Telefunken and 
Seimens planar tubes are owned by Thales now, and Brown Boveri is also. 
Thales does produce glass tubes,
>in the Thonon les Bains facility. I have seen them there numerous times, although they don't have a line of amateur power tubes anymore, mostly industrial/scientific and broadcast.
 > They took on the klystron business of Philips too. E2V in UK still 
produces glass tubes, although again not amateur. If you are so 
inclinded to buy out tube manufacturing equipment,
 > why not go to Triton in Easton, PA and resolve what happened to the 
Eimac 3-500Z and other originals.
> 73
> John
> K5PRO
>
>
>
>     Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 13:18:03 -0400
>     From: craxd <craxd1 at ezwv.com>
>     Subject: Re: [Amps] 3-500Z Recomendations
>     To: "amps at contesting.com" <amps at contesting.com>
>     Message-ID: <415EE2CB.8050207 at ezwv.com>
>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
>
>     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!