Zenith's demise.
 

Anyone know of the final days of Zenith Corp? Its really sad we let so many US companies fail by not protecting them from subsidizied foreign labor. It was unfair. So many workers lost thier jobs needlessly :sigh: We have let far too many companies fall needlessly.

Any one here know know the history of Zenith from say 1980 to when they sold what was left to Goldstar--yech!? We really need an administration with enough balls to put tarriffs on the cheap stuff coming here. Goldstar is slowly ruining the home appliance business. They are stealing patented designs from Maytag and Whirlpool. Korea has no laws on copy rights or patents. We need to start protecting whats left of US business against unfair business practices.

Sorry for the vent. Its too bad our companies have given up :thumbsdn: I miss Zenith, RCA, Motorola, etc. Both radio and TV.

Eric

Oh, it gets better all the time, pal. Last year, my uncle read in the "Wall Street Journal" there is virtually NOTHING made in the good ol' USA anymore that can't be made much cheaper in the Land of Yellow Peril. My dad's in cahoots w/this little farm machinery mfger in Texas, they got an inquiry from John Deere to make a part they've designed for JD. So we sent JD 2 of them, never heard back. Guarantee JD sent the parts to China, to see what they can be made for over there, which will prolly be 30% underneath our cost. It's a cryin' shame-pretty soon, there won't be any manufacturing base left in this country, at the rate we're going now. We thought Japan, Inc. was tough back in the '80s-the Chinese make them look like a Sunday-school picnic !!-Sandy G.

I recall 'Zenith Radio Coporation" in Chicago. Correct? Chicago was a good place to grow up in in terms of radio through the 60-70-80s. WXRT may still even exist today. :)

-sf

-and I heard Zenith was the last to manufacturer a television built in the US. IFIC, this had something to do with the Thompson Consumer Electronic Corp in Bloomington IN in the early 90s (true or false?)
-sf

There are actually quite a few TV plants operating in this country and at least one, maybe two that build private label sets.

The irony of the chinese mass production miracle is that they best us without firing a shot.....and they used the free market capitalist system to do it!! Do NOT get me started!!!!

Anthony

Last I'd heard, Zenith had been taken over by Gold Star after bankruptcy troubles. There IS an American owned TV manufacturer in Kentucky, I believe, which makes sets for various famous brand names. If they'd not fought and won a federal lawsuit accusing Chinese manufacturers of dumping their products, even this company would have folded. I saw this on a PBS special about Wal-Mart about two months ago.

Tom

http://www.zenith.com/sub_about/about_corp_history.html

That's who I was referring to......also saw that same PBS show.

What's even more frightening is that there are only a couple of machine tool companies left in America....South Bend Lathe who once employed thousands now has about a dozen people on staff.

DISGUSTING

*EVERY*thing is based on machine tools---this is the answer to the chicken and the egg....if you don't have machine tools then you're back to a purely manual agriculture based society.

Anthony

Zenith doesn't nor do it's following incarnations own any US broadcasting stations...foreign owned. Before you get started on NBC/Universal, Universal has always been an American company with foreign subsidiaries and I do beleve Viviendi sold to Universal...please correct me if I'm wrong.

US 99, as the spot on the Zenith radios supposedly denotes, probably exists as something at that frequency, but not an arm of Zenith.

Where, and what set/brand is that?
thanks

-sf

I was only aware of Sony's plants but I'd suspect another Eastern giant has plants too.

Zenith stopped making thair Black and White TVs here in the 70s, moving production to Taiwan. Some of their color TVs began to be assembled in Mexico in the early 80s, but they continued to make their consoles, CRTs, and a few table models here. I believe that Toshiba or Sharp may be assembling TVs here. Most of those big projection TVs are made in America.

Sony used to make color TVs in S.CA. Then moved to Mexico. They can't even compete in Mexico. Moved back to Asia. But, the Japanese are in about the same boat that we are. Except for the very high-end stuff, they can't afford to make in Japan, either. What goes around comes around. If we can survive. Chinese (both of them) and Korea, etc., are simply too cheap and too good. With everything being automated they only need to train folks as drones. Worker-bees.

Last company I was with in TX is making money hand-over-fist at the moment. Not because they are so good (but, since I built the place and ran it for the first five years, how could they be anything else :D ) but because the exchange rate on the dollar makes our high-tech goods very cheap overseas. And we made double-side polished wafers and special epi wafers, so are in somewhat of a nitch market. But, in the long-run, they won't last, either. Will simply be overwhelmed by the cheap labor in Asia once they decide to attack the market. Nothing new under the sun.

I'll bet a dollar to a donut within 5 years-10 at the outside- we'll see Chinese made cars here. Sure, they'll be shit at first-but they'll soon get the hang of it. They may even be Cadillacs. Yep, GM is reputedly gonna build a plant over there to make Caddys-they sell that many over there & figure the potential market is nearly limitless. Only real problem is that China doesn't have much of a modern road network-yet. China's insatiable demand for cars is one major thing that's got gas prices so high here-and it ain't gonna get much better, I'm afraid.-Sandy G.

I fear you will win that bet even sooner. I recall a news report about a Chinese car that is supposed to show up here in about 18 months. Something in the same league as the old Yugo.

Yeah, they are building Buicks over there now, but not importing them here yet. But the engine in one of the new Chevy's is made in China. There is a company working on bringing a Chinese car here very soon if they can jump it through all the hoops.

I was in a lowbuck discount store today, they had Orion 27" tv sets with American flags on them. I didn't bother walking over to see if they were a)made in the us b)rebuilt in the us (store sells lots of rebuilt stuff). It would seem like the easiest thing to do would be to import the boards from China then make the crt and cabinet here and throw it all together. Since those components are just empty boxes really why ship them around the globe? And not much labor to slap them together. But with a smaller set, 13" certainly, they are compact enough to just ship the whole works.

Saw a 13" color Zenith that looked to be c.1980 and it had an address on the back of Missouri.

My understanding is that Zenith mfg. is all gone, Thompson left in the late 90s, but that NAP is still running to some extent, maybe just big screens, down in Knoxville?

Sony I believe was the first foreign maker to build sets in the US...originally in lovely downtown Compton CA (unsafe even at noon time). They then moved to the former VW assembly plant in Pennsy....not sure if they're still there, but last I heard they were building projection and large screen high end stuff there.

I don't recall specifically, but I think Philips, Panasonic maybe JVC build sets here (or perhaps did so until recently). Bonus points to the first person to correctly identify what JVC stands for and why (what the corporate connection is)

Anthony

Japan Victor Company
 

Not RCA Victor but Victor i.e. Victrola IIRC originally Victor Talking Machines but I don't know how the "-ola" part came about. Weren't there "Amberola" records?

BTW I think the first Sony plant of real note was in San Diego (makes sense as there are docks there and Mexico is next door).

I do too, but I rejoice that Micron kicks butt and takes names here in the Treasure Valley.

They're not dead though--I'm keeping them in jars on shelves in my living room :scratch2: Perhaps someday somebody will find speakers marked "Asynchronous" in their attic...

A.,
Thanks. Almost missed the answer amid the static. NAP in Knoxville then? JVC, Japanese Video Corporation (Not Nippon Electronics Coproration) is building TVs in the US? 'American' company building TVs in the US was what i thought i recalled regarding Zenith and Thompson being the last (in Bloomington IN around '93).

-sf

Zenith had another plant in Missouri in the 80s, it seems like they made mostly little 13" color sets there, I have one of them.

I don't know where that version of the acronym JVC comes in, but they still built "Victor" components at the last I checked for domestic and maybe Eurasian sale. YMMV

Yes, WXRT is still around in Chicago, as "93XRT" FM. I live in Ohio, but I know some things about WXRT as I frequent 100000watts.com and have been interested in radio as long as I can remember (I am also an amateur radio operator, having held a ham license since 1972). Chicago also had a station known as WMAQ-FM, which became, in order, WNIS-FM (the Chicago affiliate of NBC's short-lived National News and Information Service news network, which was active briefly in the '70s) and then, IIRC, WKQX-FM101.1, the calls it now holds. (WMAQ-AM670 was an all-news station briefly in the late '90s, before going all-sports as WSCR-670 "The Score".) WMAQ-FM became WKQX after NBC was sold to General Electric. WMAQ-AM-FM (and all other NBC-operated radio stations) were sold to Emmis Communications after the original NBC network was sold.

JVC is or was Japanese Victor Corp (company?) and was indeedy part of the Victor company---which itself was an offshoot of RCA (if memory serves).

Anthony

Actually, Victor goes back to maybe 1901 and the Radio Corporation was formed during WWI as a patent pool safeguard measure to protect them from the enemy. Westinghouse, General Electric and AT&T IIRC were the founders and it was later spun off the satisfy trade laws. AT&T was out BEFORE selling the network that became NBC in 1926.

The net had a gorgeous studio complex right there in San Fransisco for several years, and SF was the hub there for recreating the shows for the western audiences.

I hear of WXRT Chicago periodically still, even though I've been just out of range for quite some time now. They were doing an amazing mixture of music when what is now called "classic rock" was maintstream pop through the 70s. (Connection for me to the thread is Zenith->Chicago->Radio, although as asynchro has pointed out, that seems to have been a paper tiger in the name "Zenith Radio Corporation" that one finds on the paper labels on the bottom of so many of those outstanding little plastic boxes.)

-sf

The Victor Talking Machine company was acquired by RCA in the late 1920's or possibly early 30's, thereafter the RCA-Victor trademark began to be used.

The Nipper trademark and the phrase "His Master's Voice" is licensed to different companies in different countries...if you look at EMI records from England, they use (or used, at least) Nipper and His Master's voice: likewise in Japan I believe JVC (Japanese Victor Corp) still uses the Nipper trademark...however any of these companies is forbidden from using the Nipper trademark on any items imported to U.S.A., likewise Thomson, G.E. or BMG, or the former RCA corp. (licensees of Nipper for USA) cannot use the Nipper trademark on exports. You will sometimes see Nipper on the back of modern RCA TV sets to help keep the trademark rights alive, even when Nipper is not used on the front panel logo.

RCA was still using the Nipper logo on the front panels of its televisions of late-'70s-'80s vintage, but had dropped the original logo by the '90s. RCA (Thomson) still uses Nipper today as a standalone logo, with the addition of a smaller dog, Chipper, next to him. (This logo may be found on Thomson's web site, www.rca.com, as well as on instruction manuals for Thomson-built RCA TVs and A/V gear.) Nice touch, and an excellent way to bring an already well-known trademark into the 21st century. GE did the same thing when it decided to retain the NBC peacock after it bought out RCA in the mid-'80s. The new peacock was and is much smaller than the original logo (and there is no announcement--"The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC"--preceding the newer symbol as there was with the original, but then again there is no need for an announcement these days, as NBC's programming is 100 percent color now). And how about the mess NBC found itself in (at least at first) when it brought out its "N" logo? Turns out this logo was the property of the Nebraska educational television network. NBC was able to make a deal with the Nebraska network, however, which allowed NBC to retain the "N" symbol. The deal included NBC's selling the Nebraska network some $100-thousand-plus worth of equipment.

NBC still uses the old "G-E-C" chimes, although today they are probably computer-generated. As with RCA's modern Nipper/Chipper logo, the computer-generated NBC chimes, used with the modern, smaller peacock, add a nice touch, retaining a sound which had been familiar to NBC radio listeners for generations (until the original NBC radio network was disbanded and sold in the mid-'80s) and which accompanied the NBC "snake" logo in the '60s and '70s, as well as being heard between programs in the network's early TV days, not to mention retaining the peacock, which is still as much a part of NBC today as it was in 1956, three years after the network began telecasting in color.

NBC may be broadcasting (satellite up- and downlinking might be more appropriate terms these days, as all TV networks now use satellites, rather than telephone lines and miles of coaxial cables as in earlier times, to transmit their programs to their affiliates) in stereo, high-definition, etc. these days to keep up with the times, but the decision by GE to retain the peacock and those nice G-E-C chimes (which stood for "General Electric Company" as well as the musical scale notes G, E and C) shows that the network is still very proud of its heritage (its roots, so to speak).

I was not aware that the HMV (His Master's Voice)/Nipper logo was still being used in Japan (by JVC) and even in England. The copyright laws must be very strict as far as the use of that logo is concerned, if it cannot be used on products made by Thomson, et al. which are exported to Japan and other countries and vice-versa. I guess they are every bit as concerned with intellectual property rights there as our manufacturers are here in the United States (what few of them are left).

There was a short window of time where Nipper was used on the front panel of RCA equipment in conjunction with the RCA block letter logo...seems like just from 79 or 80 till 83 or so...Nipper was removed due to some copyright dispute due to the complicated copyright issues surrounding this trademark.

There was also similar copyright issues surrounding the trademark "Columbia" records...when Columbia records were exported, they had to be called "CBS" records as there are different owners of the "Columbia" trademark in different countries...I believe Denon is the Japanese Columbia licensee.

Motorola is still around making cellphones, police radios, and automtive controls systems in the US.

Several chip manufacturers, Freescale (spun off from Motorola), TI, Intel, and IBM all have manufacturing plants in the US. Some of the parts from these plants go into items such as TVs, stereos, and even cars that are produced in Asia.

Samsung and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation) also have chip manufacturing plants in the US.

Electronics manufacturing is definitely limping in the US, but not quite dead.

There are many others, as well. Atmel, LSI Logic, National Semiconductor, Medtronic, etc. But, chips have become dominated by computer design and automated fabrication. And 12" wafers. All this makes for a poor employment environment. And people, other than engineers (which we do a poor job of turning out - no one wants to work that hard today) don't need all that much education to do the routine tasks now required in semiconductor manufacturing, where I worked as an engineer until 2000. With the new paradigm, it is very difficult to compete with the Chinese.

You are correct in that most of the work is done (in both design and manufacturing) by computers. I do the design work day in and day out It is all done with computers.

I am not sure that most electronic manufacturing jobs ever required great skill. Wiring up TV or radio chassis does not seem to me to require any more skill than working in a modern chip fabrication line. The skill was always in the design(of the part and the manufacturing process) , testing, and servicing.

Mostly because of so much integration and cost reduction in modern electronics, the service side is now almost completely dead for consumer items

You are very correct in saying that it is very hard to compete with the Chinese. Another reason that we do not turn out any more engineers than we do is that bright students see engineers being laid off at 50. They then turn to being doctors and lawyers so they will not have to put up with that crap. (I want to strangle all of the CEOs who come out complaining that we do not graduate enough engineers-most of them are part of the problem).

AMD also has manufacturing in the US.

I have a 19" Zenith color set, new in 1995, which was assembled in Mexico, but the company was still in the Chicago area as "Zenith Electronics Corporation" of Glenview, Illinois. I had another Zenith color set in the '80s which had a label on the back clearly proclaiming "Zenith Electronics Corporation" in Missouri (don't recall the city off the top of my head). I also had a Zenith four-mode stereo system with 8-track, etc., in the early eighties which was built for Zenith in Korea by an unnamed electronics firm.

IMO, I think Zenith as we used to know it actually disappeared years before they sold out to Gold Star, given the fact that much of Zenith's audio gear was made offshore by the '80s (my 1980 Zenith R-70 AM/FM radio was made in Korea, also, to the standards of Zenith in Chicago, and my H-480 AM/FM stereo Zenith clock radio [also 1980 vintage] was built in Taiwan) and their televisions were being made offshore by then as well (yes, even their fabulous System 3 color consoles, but the ones built in the '70s must have still been made half decently; I have a friend whose parents owned a System 3 console set with remote and had it 15 years before it finally conked out--they replaced it with a 25" RCA "Guide Plus" set that went all of two years before the CRT blew, but that's another story).

Every new Zenith TV I've owned since the late '70s was actually built either in Mexico or offshore. The only American-made Zenith radios I own anymore, however, are my H511Y (1951) and my Royal 1000-1 TO (Zenith's first transistorized T/O; mine was probably one of the first, built by the original Zenith Radio Corporation in Chicago), not to mention a wood-cased K-731 AM/FM set from 1963. You can be sure I'll hold on to these three radios, as they are pieces of Zenith history the likes of which we will never see again. I like the design, sound and the superb build quality of the R-70 as well, so that one will be a "keeper" also. Had the dickens of a time finding a replacement for a missing battery box for my T/O (finally found one a couple months ago at John Kendall's Vintage Electronics of suburban Baltimore, on his website), but it was worth it for a radio so well built and which sounds every bit as good as a good table set.

I would disagree. Back when the techs running the process tools had to know when to tweak and whatever. How to measure results by hand and work with the "hands-on" engineers to correct. Highly skilled individuals with real process knowledge.

I was the project manager for the multi-million upgrade of AMD Fabs 10, 14 & 15 in Austin back in 1989. At that time AMD was the largest maker of the 286 (more than Intel, who had moved on to the 386). Ratty old Fab 10 had much better yields than Fabs 14 & 15. Because they had the skilled techs running the processes. My, how time flies.

Time does fly-I am still in Austin, working for Freescale (spun off from Motrola). Our newest fab was built in the mid 1990s. It seems that AMDs new fabs are built in Germany these days.

The newest fab in Austin now was built by Samsung of Korea. It is my understanding that TI, Intel, and IBM are all building new fabs in the US, so some activity is underway.

Of course, this does not have anything to do with the demise of Zenith. Back on this subject, I did see a PBS special quite a few years ago that claimed that the beginning if the demise of US TV/radio manufacturers was when Sears imported Japanese sets at below manufacturing cost in the early 1970s. The US manufacturers sued the Japanese for dumping and won, but by then it was too late. At present time, even Japan is to expensive for TV/radio manufacturing, so it has also bypassed them.

I have a working 12" Sears color tv from 1971 and it was made in Japan. I have have also discovered that Curthis Mathis was importing Japanese electronics for their comsumer items at this time also.

---

(I want to strangle all of the CEOs who come out complaining that we do not graduate enough engineers-most of them are part of the problem


you are so very correct. Lets get rid of all those idiots in Washington at the same time. Seems that the whole world and a lot of our own elected are trying to make us go broke . Self interest seems to be the problem. As for me, I am proud of what americans have done in the past. In lew of self. For example , how about Armstrong? He was a smart cookie and he gave up all his patents in WW II for the sake of the USA/. In the end, RCA screwed him.
Its a darn shame. All cause of greed. I am not rich but I am content!

Right on. A paradigm shift is urgently needed. We may well look back at this period in history with amazement about how far an ecomonic lead we squandered by allowing short-sighted self-interest to become almost a religion. (Has that happened yet?) -sf

'Can't make it here any more

Sanyo is still manufacturing t.v.'s and other electronics in the U.S. They have a plant in Forrest City, AR. which is about 16 miles from my home.

Dumont- First with the finest in television.

And it would seem that for the most part Sanyo TV's as of late arent that bad reliability wise. I know several people who got the "walmart special" Sanyo's ranging from 19" (my father) up to 32 inches and they are all between 3 and 10 years old. the 32 incher being the 10 year old one. Picture is very clear and the colors look quite good. I dunno, they dont seem that bad for what it is. And to be made in america is kinda cool too.
From their website: