Hi Hsu - yes, most things are made in China these days :-) But the problem is
knowing which tubes are good and which ones are no good. In my experience
price isn't usually an indicator. Like everywhere China has good and bad
manufacturers. Our problem here is knowing which we're dealing with!
I bought some Chinese 572Bs which were great, some 3-500Zs which were great,
but also some 3-500Zs which were rubbish. But they all cost about the same.
I think that although by and large in this world you get what you pay for,
various importers play dirty tricks like passing off cheaper, poor quality kit
as good quality. The suppliers and producers come and go, so we don't have the
same sense of stability, trust and guarantee that we do with established
suppliers.
If Eimac (or GE, or GM, or Marks and Spencer....) chose a bad supplier in
China, they'd put their reputation on the line and their name would be dragged
through the mud, especially on this forum! We don't have that answerability
from a supplier we can't identify. Perhaps you do!
As a long-established, trusted and respected company with whom I've had a
relationship for some years now, I know who to speak to in Eimac for
applicaitons advice, who to bounce ideas off, who to get literature from,
including reprints of application bullein and amateur service newsletters
articles up to 40 years old (for example the AS53 design considerations article
I sent out on PDF to this group recently. It's the same people I first dealt
with 20 years ago - and that means a lot. That AS53 pdf was pulled out of the
library for me, scanned and sent out to me in half an hour, because I have the
right network. That's called service and is, I suppose, part of what we pay fo
in the price. They know that, even though I'm just a low budget Ham operator
who buys second-hand tubes and I never paid a cent directly to Eimac.
Sure, Eimac have to source in China these days to remain remotely competitive,
who doesn't? But I know someone who's a buyer of electrical goods for a major
UK chain of retailers. He spends 75 percent of his life in China and he has to
put a tremendous effort into doing that relationship-building, commercial
contracting, pipeline management and quality assurance - all to actually turn
in a profit in a tougheconomic climate. If Eimac (or another firm I trust) do
that on my behalf then I may regard it as a price worth paying - I know how
bloody hard my friend works, how pissed off and frustrated he gets, and that's
worth a few bucks to me!
kind regards
Dave G0OIL
--- On Thu, 8/1/09, Hsu <hsu4qro@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Hsu <hsu4qro@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] 3CX1500D7 quote
To: "DAVE WHITE" <mausoptik@btinternet.com>
Cc: amps@contesting.com
Date: Thursday, 8 January, 2009, 7:34 PM
Actually some Eimac's tubes were OEM in China.
Hsu
----- Original Message -----
From: "DAVE WHITE" <mausoptik@btinternet.com>
To: "'Amps'" <amps@contesting.com>; "Peter
Voelpel" <df3kv@t-online.de>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 8:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Amps] 3CX1500D7 quote
> Hi Peter
>
> Well I think you must have had more luck with the Chinese tubes than I
have. Maybe they've improved.
>
> I find it's a very hit-and-miss process with Chinese tubes - either
they're great or they're hopeless and in some cases don't even fit
the socket.
>
> I suppose that as the industry matures in China, we'll start to see
branded tubes and we'll know which factories produce the good stuff and
which don't!
>
> In the end, I came by a few Eimac 3CX3000F7 pulls very cheaply at Dayton
so used one of those for my big HF amp instead of - as I'd planned - a pair
of GS35Bs
>
> Looking at the way the UK Labour Government has trashed the economy and
the subsequent Sterling fall against just about every currency (30% against USD
in the last 6 months, parity with EUR) I'm glad I'm not in the market
for buying big tubes right now.
>
> Maybe I should have hung on to my box of GS35Bs - I could have doubled the
UK's export figures!
>
> cheers
>
> Dave G0OIL
>
> --- On Thu, 8/1/09, Peter Voelpel <df3kv@t-online.de> wrote:
> From: Peter Voelpel <df3kv@t-online.de>
> Subject: Re: [Amps] 3CX1500D7 quote
> To: "'Amps'" <amps@contesting.com>
> Date: Thursday, 8 January, 2009, 12:22 PM
>
> I bought 10+ GS-35B at 40.-DM in 1999.
> Most have been given away to ham friends shortly after for their
projects,
> others were used to convert linears.
> I should have bought 100 that time as well as GU-78 which were around
80.-
> DM at that time, sockets cost 40.-DM then.
>
> With Chinese tubes my experience is very good so far.
> I converted a couple of TL-922 and L4B to Chinese 3-500Z, those are
really
> nice tubes, much better then the Eimac.
> A factory nearby is using around 400 8877 from China in their generators
for
> glass coating, they paid 450 US$ each.
> The tubes are used at voltage regulators for magnetrons and replaced
Amperex
> 4-400B which went out of production 4 years ago.
> Two are in use at ham friends now for about 3 years, those were pulled
after
> about 1000 hours.
> Grid current is still less then with the Eimacs at same output. Since the
> tubes are very reliable, I could not obtain additional pulls.
>>From all the 400 tubes none was replaced so far.
>
> 73
> Peter
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: amps-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:amps-bounces@contesting.com] On
> Behalf Of DAVE WHITE
> Sent: Donnerstag, 8. Januar 2009 12:15
> To: Tony Brock-Fisher; Amps@contesting.com; Carl
> Subject: Re: [Amps] 3CX1500D7 quote
>
> "Id take an 8877 over a Ruskie any day"I guess it depends on
price.
> In my
> experience the original Russian tubes were pretty good, though obviously
not
> as good as Eimac tubes. However, if you can buy GS35Bs for the price of a
> 8877 (and that was the price in Europe last time I looked, a few years
> ago)......
>
> I've heard a few bad reports of Russian tubes recently. The original
ones
> we
> got in the early 1990s were made for military use, so had to be to a
certain
> standard. The new ones appear increasingly to be built to a price.
>
> I'd certainly avoid the Chinese tubes, since these are just churned
out for
> export and many I have seen have been of questionalble quality.
>
> The GS35Bs sold like hot cakes in Germany when they first became known to
> European VHF/UHF amateurs via articles in Dubus etc. I remember buying a
> huge box full of them at Weinheim in about 1994-ish. They then sat around
> in my shack for several years until I realised that I'd never use
them,
> then
> I took them back to the same fleamarket a couple of years later and sold
> them for five times the price. Now I wish I'd kept them, of course!
> Isn't
> that always the way? :-)
>
> But think on.....one day Eimac will go the same way as all the other
> manufacturing sector firms that disappeared due to cheaper, often
inferior
> foreign competition, and then I think we'd be sorry. Famous,
> long-established names are disappearing from Britain like you
wouldn't
> believe.
>
> cheers
>
> Dave G0OIL
>
>
> --- On Thu, 8/1/09, Carl <km1h@jeremy.mv.com> wrote:
> From: Carl <km1h@jeremy.mv.com>
> Subject: Re: [Amps] 3CX1500D7 quote
> To: "Tony Brock-Fisher" <barockteer@aol.com>,
> Amps@contesting.com
> Date: Thursday, 8 January, 2009, 3:30 AM
>
> Id take an 8877 over a Ruskie any day if I was doing a swap.
>
> Carl
> KM1H
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Brock-Fisher" <barockteer@aol.com>
> To: <Amps@contesting.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 10:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [Amps] 3CX1500D7 quote
>
>
>> OK, so how about 3CX1200A7 at $1139? ('Special Price' at RF
Parts)
>>
>> ...or, a GS-35B at $129 ('Buy It Now') !!
>>
>> (No wonder the AL-1200's are getting retubed Russian style!)
>>
>> -Tony, K1KP
>> _______________________________________________
>> Amps mailing list
>> Amps@contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
>>
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