Why don't the missionaries or someone set them up to make some old
time tube radios which need a lot of labor to make and sell them over
here? Since all humans have equal intelligence and capacity then they
should be able to put them to work at a rate they will be grateful
for, is how I see it.

Honestly, it's because there is no market here for them. Good old
faded memories, people forget the reason why tube radios stopped being
made.. and the answer is simple... transistor radios were superior in
every possible way, more reliable, less drift, didn't break down as
much, more portable, and cheaper to build.

If there was a market for tube radios, they would still be made
somewhere.

"GPS" wrote in message
...

Honestly, it's because there is no market here for them. Good old
faded memories, people forget the reason why tube radios stopped being
made.. and the answer is simple... transistor radios were superior in
every possible way, more reliable, less drift, didn't break down as
much, more portable, and cheaper to build.

If there was a market for tube radios, they would still be made
somewhere.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transistor radios began taking a significant share of the market only after
they got either 1) significantly smaller or 2) significantly cheaper than
tube radios.

In reality, good tube SW sets were, and still could be, better than solid
state sets. This was particularly true of consumer grade sets that had lousy
intermod and overload specs (I've had plenty of mid-60's to 80's consumer
grade SW radios that not only received a given SW station in multiple spots
on the dial, but also received FM radio and TV signals on the SW bands
(needless to say, they were NOT copyable.)

I'll grant they were more portable, and became much cheaper to build, but as
for build QUALITY, that wasn't so good, unless you had something like a
Royal 7000 or something higher grade like a Kenwood or Icom or Yaesu. SS SW
radios drifted as bad as any tube set, but for a slightly different reason.
It still had to do with heat, but since the radio itself didn't generate
much, external heat was the culprit. Even the venerable Superadio series is
very prone to drift with just the temperature extremes between night and
day.

On Jan 26, 2:57*am, "Brenda Ann"
wrote:
"GPS" *wrote in message

...

Honestly, it's because there is no market here for them. Good old
faded memories, people forget the reason why tube radios stopped being
made.. and the answer is simple... transistor radios were superior in
every possible way, more reliable, less drift, didn't break down as
much, more portable, and cheaper to build.

If there was a market for tube radios, they would still be made
somewhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transistor radios began taking a significant share of the market only after
they got either 1) significantly smaller or 2) significantly cheaper than
tube radios.

In reality, good tube SW sets were, and still could be, better than solid
state sets. This was particularly true of consumer grade sets that had lousy
intermod and overload specs (I've had plenty of mid-60's to 80's consumer
grade SW radios that not only received a given SW station in multiple spots
on the dial, but also received FM radio and TV signals on the SW bands
(needless to say, they were NOT copyable.)

I'll grant they were more portable, and became much cheaper to build, but as
for build QUALITY, that wasn't so good, unless you had something like a
Royal 7000 or something higher grade like a Kenwood or Icom or Yaesu. SS SW
radios drifted as bad as any tube set, but for a slightly different reason.

The world worked just fine on tubes for some 70 years, before some wise guy came along and decided that they were bad and that they could make something better.

In fact, tubes has a service life.
Lets say the life of a properly cared for tube is about 40,000 hours.
Little things like turning off the radio and turning it back on again and not letting the tubes properly warm up - were detrimental to tube life.
You maybe got 15,000 hours out of a tube before its effectiveness began to fade.

Tubes do not like to be stored in a cold place and they do not like to be dormant. A old tube - still in the box isn't always a good tube, even when properly tested. You go to ham radio swap meets all the time and there is always someone there that collects tubes and has bins full of them.
You get all excited because they have the tube you are looking for, only to bring it home and it doesn't work as well as the original tube the radio came with. That is because the tube is old and the tubes life has been reduced by the way it was stored. It needs to be used at least once every 12 months, 6 would be even better.

People wants everything now and they don't want to wait for the tubes to warm up to talk on their nets. They want to turn the radio on, say their call sign and no traffic and turn the radio off.
The drive for a miniaturized 12 volt mobile radio was the reason why the transistorized radio became so popular.

You need to remember that all this radio crap comes from Japan and China and Korea and third world countries for a reason, and the reason why radios were not improved sooner was all due to the US government.

From the 1960's when President Kennedy said we are going to put a man on the moon, the US Missile program consumed all of the transistors produced in the USA from that point right up to the 1990's.
By that time, the foreign markets had already monopolized the market to the point of where no one else could enter it competitively.
About the only mass produced equipment made in the USA that was even close was probably the Heath Kit stuff and other radio manufacturers of the day.

Even Motorola tried to get into the Ham radio market not too long ago and they only produced one or two models of radio, before they realized that the cost of production was so high that they could not be competitive and they quickly got out of it.

Back in the day, a relative of mine worked for GE.
GE made some of the best radio equipment out there, including the Mastr II repeaters. If you listen to the old recordings of the Apollo program, you will hear the little beeps between transmissions. Then you listen to your local repeater and you hear the same little beeps - why - because that repeater was a GE series repeater which was re-purposed to be used for amateur radios.

GE was electronically correct.
Motorola was politically correct.

GE built things that worked, their motto was - we bring good things to life.
Motorola crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's and they ended up being the company which the US Government called upon to produce the equipment they wished to purchase.
It wasn't because the Motorola stuff was better, just because they knew how to do business in the USA.
Make it good, make it cheap and pay the graft and corruption money and keep your mouth shut.
If you sell a $50,000.00 radio unit to a local government, you need to bid it at $65,000.00
Install it for $50,000.00 and kick back $10,000.00 to the local officials to get the contract.
That is the reason why our country is so broke today and the reason why government officials spends millions of dollars to get a job which pays $150,000.00 or less per a year.

On Jan 27, 10:13*am, Channel Jumper Channel.Jumper.
wrote:
The world worked just fine on tubes for some 70 years, before some wise
guy came along and decided that they were bad and that they could make
something better.

In fact, tubes has a service life.
Lets say the life of a properly cared for tube is about 40,000 hours.
Little things like turning off the radio and turning it back on again
and not letting the tubes properly warm up - were detrimental to tube
life.
You maybe got 15,000 hours out of a tube before its effectiveness began
to fade.

Tubes do not like to be stored in a cold place and they do not like to
be dormant. *A old tube - still in the box isn't always a good tube,
even when properly tested. * You go to ham radio swap meets all the time
and there is always someone there that collects tubes and has bins full
of them.
You get all excited because they have the tube you are looking for, only
to bring it home and it doesn't work as well as the original tube the
radio came with. * That is because the tube is old and the tubes life
has been reduced by the way it was stored. * It needs to be used at
least once every 12 months, 6 would be even better.

People wants everything now and they don't want to wait for the tubes to
warm up to talk on their nets. * They want to turn the radio on, say
their call sign and no traffic and turn the radio off.
The drive for a miniaturized 12 volt mobile radio was the reason why the
transistorized radio became so popular.

You need to remember that all this radio crap comes from Japan and China
and Korea and third world countries for a reason, and the reason why
radios were not improved sooner was all due to the US government.

From the 1960's when President Kennedy said we are going to put a man on
the moon, the US Missile program consumed all of the transistors
produced in the USA from that point right up to the 1990's.
By that time, the foreign markets had already monopolized the market to
the point of where no one else could enter it competitively.
About the only mass produced equipment made in the USA that was even
close was probably the Heath Kit stuff and other radio manufacturers of
the day.

Even Motorola tried to get into the Ham radio market not too long ago
and they only produced one or two models of radio, before they realized
that the cost of production was so high that they could not be
competitive and they quickly got out of it.

Back in the day, a relative of mine worked for GE.
GE made some of the best radio equipment out there, including the Mastr
II repeaters. *If you listen to the old recordings of the Apollo
program, you will hear the little beeps between transmissions. * Then
you listen to your local repeater and you hear the same little beeps -
why - because that repeater was a GE series repeater which was
re-purposed *to be used for amateur radios.

GE was electronically correct.
Motorola was politically correct.

GE built things that worked, their motto was - we bring good things to
life.
Motorola crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's and they ended up
being the company which the US Government called upon to produce the
equipment they wished to purchase.
It wasn't because the Motorola stuff was better, just because they knew
how to do business in the USA.
Make it good, make it cheap and pay the graft and corruption money and
keep your mouth shut.
If you sell a $50,000.00 radio unit to a local government, you need to
bid it at $65,000.00
Install it for $50,000.00 and kick back $10,000.00 to the local
officials to get the contract.
That is the reason why our country is so broke today and the reason why
government officials spends millions of dollars to get a job which pays
$150,000.00 or less per a year.

--
Channel Jumper

Some of this is true and some of this is bull****.

GE is a cancerous megamonolith that needs breaking up into many
smaller pieces. That said they did, and still build a few halfway
decent things, like jet engines and locomotives, but most of their
consumer stuff was always ****. With a few specific exceptions.

The missile program never did consume all or even a majority of US
semiconductor output. They did wind up spoiling the semiconductor
houses badly, but when Apollo and Vietnam wound down they were in
serious trouble. The Japanese had the market for linear analog parts
by the balls, and they were selling most of it not as parts but in
consumer products, often at prices designed to undercut the US
industry. The US semi houses had to go into digital and
microprocessors and this turned out to be financially smart for them,
a big win for Intel in the long run and Motorola for a while too.

The mass market does not care about radios per se. I am talking here
about a small niche market.

On 1/26/2012 12:24 AM, wrote:
Since all humans have equal intelligence and capacity



You'd better stop right there.

All the best,


Kevin, WB4AIO.
--
http://nationalvanguard.org/
http://kevinalfredstrom.com/

In rec . antiques . radio+phono there's a discussion of a Western
Electric ERPI audio power amp that sold for north of thirty grand to
some rich oriental collector. Have you looked into the phenomenon of
Audiophiles in general, and this Japanese/ other Asian obsession with
this old Western electric theater gear, from the perspective I know
you have and which I somewhat share?

It wasn't something Dr. P ever talked about because he had way bigger
fish to fry....but it is interesting, yes?

On 1/28/2012 6:36 PM, wrote:
In rec . antiques . radio+phono there's a discussion of a Western
Electric ERPI audio power amp that sold for north of thirty grand to
some rich oriental collector. Have you looked into the phenomenon of
Audiophiles in general, and this Japanese/ other Asian obsession with
this old Western electric theater gear, from the perspective I know
you have and which I somewhat share?

It wasn't something Dr. P ever talked about because he had way bigger
fish to fry....but it is interesting, yes?


Yes, even old Western Electric and RCA intercoms -- and knobs, for
heaven's sake -- are going for crazy, astronomical prices. Some of
the old gear sounded really good, to be sure. But it's become a
tulip-bulb-craze type phenomenon -- a mostly psychological
money/status thing...


With all good wishes,


Kevin, WB4AIO.
--
http://nationalvanguard.org/
http://kevinalfredstrom.com/

On Feb 18, 8:53*am, Kevin Alfred Strom
wrote:
On 1/28/2012 6:36 PM, wrote:

* In rec . antiques . radio+phono *there's a discussion of a Western
Electric ERPI *audio power amp that sold for north of thirty grand to
some rich oriental collector. Have you looked into the phenomenon of
Audiophiles in general, and this Japanese/ other Asian obsession with
this old Western electric theater gear, from the perspective I know
you have and which I somewhat share?

* It wasn't something Dr. P ever talked about because he had way bigger
fish to fry....but it is interesting, yes?

Yes, even old Western Electric and RCA intercoms -- and knobs, for
heaven's sake -- are going for crazy, astronomical prices. Some of
the old gear sounded really good, to be sure. But it's become a
tulip-bulb-craze type phenomenon -- a mostly psychological
money/status thing...

With all good wishes,

Kevin, WB4AIO.
--http://nationalvanguard.org/http://kevinalfredstrom.com/

Anything American-made ,prior to about 1970 was of exceptional
quality . Ever seen an Andrea television from the inside ?
Personally, I never liked RCA . Most of their stuff was mass market
oriented . Majority of their transformers (both power ans well as
audio) looked and behaved appropriately . The vacuum tubes were much
better, most of the time, but not always ... Now WE was the real
stuff . It was meant to be run around the clock . And it did , with
flying colors . And it still does . Fifty+ years later.