In article , Roy Lewallen
writes:

Egad, yes. Every year, the new TVs had an altogether new tube lineup.
The tubes were generally the same old stuff, but in new envelopes with
different pinouts, or different combinations in one envelope. All the
service shops had to buy and stock a bunch of new tubes each year. That
sort of greedy planned obsolescence was one of several reasons TV
manufacturing rapidly died out in the U.S.

Not quite that, Roy. Off-shore production could do it cheaper.

29 years ago an in-house RCA publication announced that all
black-and-white RCA television sets would be made off-shore
while the Indianapolis, Indiana, complex continued with color
TV receivers. I was working for RCA in Van Nuys, CA, at the
time and was considering buying one through the company
store to save me money.

Back then the TV sets were still using tubes, still had the
rotating turret tuners for the low band, few manufacturers
offered remote controls. "Greedy planned obsolescence?"
No, just a lot of competition. Competition drove pricing and
low pricing required significant design changes like all series-
strung tube filaments to get rid of the power transformer.

The old RCA Indianapolis TV works is still operating, still uses
the RCA logo even though it is now owned by Thomson-CSF.
[or did it change hands again?]

So, three decades later where are all the other U.S. TV set
factories? Check out Circuit City, Best Buy, Wal-Mart,
K-Mart, Lowes, etc., and see where they are made NOW.
Back in 1958 Radio and Television News magazine had a
special edition on TV and included a representative listing of
color TV sets, all American made, all the cheap ones costing
about $500 in 1958 dollars. Nowadays an equivalent size
display color TV, plus remote control, plus PLL electronic
tuning for VHF through UHF channels, plus built-in captioning,
plus full sweep AFC, plus on-screen setting, plus a clock,
costs less than $300 retail in 2003 dollars...those are all
off-shore built, says so on their back panels.

For that matter, what happened to all those famous U. S.
makers of tube-type ham radios? Like Hallicrafters, National
Radio, RME, Collins Radio (Collins still alive but left the ham
market quite some time ago), Hammarlund.

"Mankind invented language to satisfy his need to complain"
--- Anonymous

Len Anderson
retired (from regular hours) electronic engineer person