EF Johnson Being Acquired... By JVC Kenwood

[W3WN]

EF Johnson Technologies, a one time manufacturer in the Amateur Radio industry, announced last Friday that they are being acquired by JVC Kenwood

Announcement at http://www.efjohnson.com/news_room/v...ticle_id=80633

Side note: Now maybe I missed it, or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I don't recall hearing that JVC and Kenwood merged back in October 2011.

Which means that the new corporate entity will contain parts of two old US communications companies... EF Johnson, and the former RCA subsidiary, Victor Company of Japan (JVC)

[VE7DCW]

EF Johnson Technologies, a one time manufacturer in the Amateur Radio industry, announced last Friday that they are being acquired by JVC Kenwood

Announcement at http://www.efjohnson.com/news_room/v...ticle_id=80633

Side note: Now maybe I missed it, or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I don't recall hearing that JVC and Kenwood merged back in October 2011.

Which means that the new corporate entity will contain parts of two old US communications companies... EF Johnson, and the former RCA subsidiary, Victor Company of Japan (JVC)

Yup .......Ron you are correct.It's all in the damn initials..... JVC= Japan Victor Company..... NEC= Nippon Electric Company...... COSCO= China Overseas Shipping Company......... and dozens and dozens of others.I see a college course in recognizing corporate initials in the future!

[K7SGJ]

It probably makes sense, since EFJ hasn't produced anything in the US in a long time. At least, nothing that I'm aware of. In the CB craze daze, their radios were one of the most reliable rigs made. The 123, 323, and similar series were a pleasure, although a rarity, to work on. They could always make specifications, and had some of the cleanest outputs and best audio for a 27 MHz rig.

[kb2vxa]

Their ham transmitters with the exception of the Viking 1 & 2 left something to be desired, power supplies and modulation transformers, they skimped on both. The worst was the desk kilowatt driven by the preferred Ranger, second choice the Valiant. At half power it sounded fine but at full AM output the power supply flagged and it sounded like mud. Now it's commercial two way FM gear, not all that popular.

They made some really good CBs and they were prized highly, but the ham transmitters with 11M on them were much better. Happiness is a big Johnson.

Victor goes WAY back to the early disc player copies of the Berliner Gramophone, Victrola. Then RCA bought them, added electricity and it became RCA Victor, later it went overseas and became JVC which expanded the line making all sorts of home entertainment equipment. I don't know why they call it entertainment, I call it boredom relief, home entertainment is in the bedroom where no electronics belong.

[W3WN]

It probably makes sense, since EFJ hasn't produced anything in the US in a long time. At least, nothing that I'm aware of. In the CB craze daze, their radios were one of the most reliable rigs made. The 123, 323, and similar series were a pleasure, although a rarity, to work on. They could always make specifications, and had some of the cleanest outputs and best audio for a 27 MHz rig.

I'll have to take your word for it. I was never interested in CB.

[W3WN]

< snip >
Victor goes WAY back to the early disc player copies of the Berliner Gramophone, Victrola. Then RCA bought them, added electricity and it became RCA Victor, later it went overseas and became JVC which expanded the line making all sorts of home entertainment equipment. I don't know why they call it entertainment, I call it boredom relief, home entertainment is in the bedroom where no electronics belong.

Ummm, well, that's not quite the history that I've heard... for example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_Victor

In 1929, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the world's largest manufacturer of phonographs (including the famous "Victrola") and phonograph records (in British English, "gramophone records"). The company then became RCA-Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper trademark.

During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed.

[K7SGJ]

I'll have to take your word for it. I was never interested in CB.

I never really got into the 11 meter crazies as I usually had several ham rigs in my vehicles. But I sure made a shit-ton of $$ fixing them for those that did.

[KC9ECI]

There is nothing that could convince me to ever purchase another product by EFJohnson. I have their rigs in all of our fire apparatus. Had the one in our front line engine shit the bed. No RF out. Service tech came, swapped it out with a loaner, told me it would be back in 2 weeks. After a month, I contacted them and asked what was going on with the radio. They didn't know and would have to look in to it. 2 weeks later, they reply. Water intrusion. Not covered under warranty. $1000 to repair, $3700 to replace I told them I wanted pictures as I would be filing an insurance claim. I authorize them to fix it. Meanwhile, the more I think about it, the more pissed I get. I start giving them shit via twitter and facebook. This leads to a number of exchanges via email and me ultimately being told I was 'difficult to contact.' I replied 'I'm further disappointed in the time that it took for anyone from your company to contact me, and the claim that there were numerous attempts made to do is difficult to believe, unless of course they were using semaphore or smoke signals. You might let your Director of Operations know that telephone or email are both very reliable methods of communication these days. ' It was at this point that I was asked to call one of the VP's. By the end of that conversation there was no longer going to be any cost to us to repair that radio, and not a chance in hell that as long as I have anything to do with it, our fire dept will ever again purchase an EF Johnson product.

[kb2vxa]

I was never into the CB crazies either' when that shit started I sold my equipment and got a pretty penny for it too. Meanwhile I made a ton of money, shit stinks so I avoided it. One of my favorites because it was so easy, profitable and by popular demand was de-pinging that good performing but otherwise annoying on the air and to the operator Browning Eagle. I simply removed the axial lead 20uF 450VDC electrolytic across the receiver mute terminals on the back at $20 a snip. Additional profit was made by using the cap as a free replacement part in other equipment.

Heh, what I said about E. F. Johnson was "Now it's commercial two way FM gear, not all that popular." and you explained why.

[w2amr]

Their ham transmitters with the exception of the Viking 1 & 2 left something to be desired, power supplies and modulation transformers, they skimped on both. The worst was the desk kilowatt driven by the preferred Ranger, second choice the Valiant. At half power it sounded fine but at full AM output the power supply flagged and it sounded like mud. .

So the audio on a Valiant sounds better when the transmitter is running at half power? You are a constant source of entertainment.