Well, okay. Maybe the title is a little over the top. Even so, parts suppliers I have relied on for years are falling by the wayside month by month, year by year.
All Electronics was a reliable source of 'second-source' electronic parts. Prices were a fraction of the regular catalog sources like Mouser, Allied or Newark. Some of their former employees launched http://www.aretronics.com. Nice, but not quite the same. Stuff I relied on for years isn't there. I check from time to time but they haven't offered anything I can't live without. Yet.
Marlin P Jones, or mpja.com closed up earlier this year. They sold their stock to skycraft surplus, but what they offer is merely a shadow of the old mpja stock. Their orientation is clearly aviation, industial mechanics and such, not so much electronics. And not the hobbyist angle mpja catered to.
RF Parts Inc is still with us, but the founder and resident enginering genius Merit Arnold is gone. The obit says he passed May 30, 2024. Sure must have been a while since I last called RFP and asked to speak to him. Didn't find out until yesterday, speaking to an ex-employee. RIP, Merit. Here's hoping that RFP Inc. will outlast him a while longer.
But the coup d'etat for anyone maintaining tube-type radios made by Tram or Browning would be the imminent retirement of Greg Barkett, owner of goldeneagleradios.com. He has sold all of his Tram and Browning parts and as such no longer has them to sell. The new owner has not communicated any plans for several tons of parts stock, so here's hoping. He bought the parts only, not the web site nor the database behind it. He will have a large job to get all that stuff photographed and entered into a E-commerce database. Greg still has the parts for RCI-made Ranger, Galaxy and such radios. But only until he finds a buyer for those as well. Only a matter of time. If you have been putting off buying any RCI-specific parts until later, strike now, while the iron is hot, so to speak.
This does increase the incentive to hang on to junk radio chassis. Eventually they will be the only viable source for model-specific parts.
It's not so much an asteroid strike as much as slow evolution at play. Nothing stays the same forever.
73
All Electronics was a reliable source of 'second-source' electronic parts. Prices were a fraction of the regular catalog sources like Mouser, Allied or Newark. Some of their former employees launched http://www.aretronics.com. Nice, but not quite the same. Stuff I relied on for years isn't there. I check from time to time but they haven't offered anything I can't live without. Yet.
Marlin P Jones, or mpja.com closed up earlier this year. They sold their stock to skycraft surplus, but what they offer is merely a shadow of the old mpja stock. Their orientation is clearly aviation, industial mechanics and such, not so much electronics. And not the hobbyist angle mpja catered to.
RF Parts Inc is still with us, but the founder and resident enginering genius Merit Arnold is gone. The obit says he passed May 30, 2024. Sure must have been a while since I last called RFP and asked to speak to him. Didn't find out until yesterday, speaking to an ex-employee. RIP, Merit. Here's hoping that RFP Inc. will outlast him a while longer.
But the coup d'etat for anyone maintaining tube-type radios made by Tram or Browning would be the imminent retirement of Greg Barkett, owner of goldeneagleradios.com. He has sold all of his Tram and Browning parts and as such no longer has them to sell. The new owner has not communicated any plans for several tons of parts stock, so here's hoping. He bought the parts only, not the web site nor the database behind it. He will have a large job to get all that stuff photographed and entered into a E-commerce database. Greg still has the parts for RCI-made Ranger, Galaxy and such radios. But only until he finds a buyer for those as well. Only a matter of time. If you have been putting off buying any RCI-specific parts until later, strike now, while the iron is hot, so to speak.
This does increase the incentive to hang on to junk radio chassis. Eventually they will be the only viable source for model-specific parts.
It's not so much an asteroid strike as much as slow evolution at play. Nothing stays the same forever.
73
