Phil (VA3UX) wrote:
At 03:40 PM 8/6/2001 -0600, you wrote:
I always wondered what happened to Telequipment.
That's what happened Doug. Tek bought Telequipment in late 1966 in order
to capture some market share in the "low end" scope market - a market where
Tek had no presence at that time. Telequipment made a decent quality
no-frills scope at an affordable price. Their scopes certainly weren't up
to the standards of the Tek line but they were a head-and-shoulders above
the typical American service grade scopes (Hickok, Stark, Precision,
Heathkit, etc). The Telequipment name carried on until some time in the
early 70's until the name was dropped and the Tek name was put on the
instruments. Telequipment instruments with the Tektronix name had model
numbers that began with "T". Eventually, the whole product line was
dropped and that was the end of Telequipment. Of all the good things Tek
did, buying Telequipment was not one of them. In a small way, the scope
market would have been better off if Telequipment had just been left alone.
Phil
Well, I concur with all of the above, except the following. I don't ever remember
the "Tek" name appearing on any Telequipment scope. The T900 series was a separate
engineering effort based in Beaverton, OR and had nothing whatsoever to do with
Telequipment, as far as I know. It was a low-cost effort and that is where the
similarity to Telequipment ends, to the best of my recollection.
What really happened to Telequipment is that a decision was made by Tek management
to shut it down because customer satisfaction with the products was just too low.
What was saved in the cost of initial purchase was quickly spent in maintenance of
Telequipment scopes. When you save the cost of transistor sockets, for example,
you have to spend more to replace the transistor when it does go bad. The long
term economics of buying a low-cost scope is just not a good concept, in general,
especially for commercial customers.
Stan
w7ni@...
