[Hammarlund] SP-600 (Recapping Completed)

[Robert Nickels]

On 1/28/2012 10:00 PM, Richard Knoppow wrote:
> Evidently the same conglomerate bought GC and Philmore and a bunch of other familiar names
I posted the following on  another reflector a couple of weeks ago when 
the topic of General Cement came up, and will pass it along here for 
historical purposes since the thread winds through several prominent ham 
radio manufacturers:

---------------

Founded in 1930 with a home-brewed formula for cement used on wood radio 
cabinets and speaker cones, the GC Electronics company remains based in 
Rockford IL even though many products are now sourced elsewhere: 
http://www.gcelectronics.com/aboutus.asp

When I first moved to this area 25 years ago, there were still several 
distributors catering to the Radio-TV repair trade who had large 
pegboard and rack displays of the many GC products.  Of course those 
stores are long gone, but that's why the GC alignment tools became so 
ubiquitous - it was easier to just add a set along with the days order 
of tubes and parts than to try to find the tool that disappeared in the 
tube caddy.

GC and many other companies became owned by Textron in the 1950s as 
Royal Little began amassing that conglomerate.  Around the same time, 
the first wave of CB radio hit and early manufacturers like World Radio 
Laboratories were swamped with orders that far exceeded their production 
and financial capacity.    Leo Meyerson approached GC about buying 
Globe, but when Textron executives saw what was happening in mid-1959, 
they instead created the Textron Electronics division, with GC and Globe 
Electronics the leading brands.  The factory in Council Bluffs was 
expanded with Leo as President, and a fellow named Roger Mace (who Leo 
hired away from Heathkit where he'd designed a number of transmitters 
from the AT-1 through DX-100) as his new Director of Engineering.

Before long it was decided that Globe products could be manufactured 
more efficiently in the 300,000 sq. ft. GC factory in Rockford, and the 
Globe operation (including many key employees) were moved to Rockford.   
Leo was encouraged to stay on as President, but declined to move, sold 
off his Textron stock,  and stayed in Council Bluffs to run WRL.     Not 
surprisingly,  GC soon ran into quality problems and asked Leo to come 
to help, or if he was interested, to buy the company back.    Leo felt 
the Globe brand had been damaged by Textrons mistakes and declined to do 
so,  and Globe folded soon thereafter (I ended up with a couple of Globe 
"Mobiline Six" transceivers that were in process at the time, partially 
assembled artifacts of that era).  GC remained part of Textron for a 
time, but was later sold;  Greenlee,  a former Rockford-based sister 
company that made the famous chassis punches, remains part of Textron 
today.

Meanwhile, fellow Iowan Art Collins was making big waves in the radio 
world with the KWM-1 and KWM-2 transceivers; Leo decided that single 
sideband was the future and formed Galaxy Electronics in 1962.   He 
hired a fellow named Marvin Gehr who was a technician at Collins on the 
KWM-2 team, made him an engineer, and put him in charge of developing a 
single-sideband transceiver, which became the Galaxy 300.   Gehr wasn't 
a graduate engineer, but as a math major later rented time on an early 
computer to design the LC filters that allowed Galaxy to win the 
contract for the FRR-230 military receiver.   Thanks to Leo's business 
acumen,  WRL and Galaxy Electronics enjoyed success throughout the 1960s 
and into the 70s, long after Globe passed into history.

GC Electronics also survives, and still operates out of Rockford, along 
with master distributor Waldom Electronics (once GC-Waldom).  A small 
family-owned company called LKG Industries that was started by a former 
President of GC Electronics acquired a handful of other legacy 
"pegboard" brands including Philmore, Datak, and  Pfanstiehl, and also 
still operates out of Rockford.

73, Bob W9RAN