[TMC] Why ?

[John Poulton]

 Mike poses a useful question, and it's essentially my job to answer
it.  I've been assembling information for a comprehensive history of
TMC for some time, but just haven't (yet) had the time and energy to
arrange it into an actual document.  I still have a few hours of
interviews to transcribe, and lots of written material to organize,
but ... those are excuses!

That said, if anyone on the list has information, stories, theories,
...whatever.. to contribute to this effort, please do!

As to why TMC didn't get sold.. I think by the time (late 70's) that a
sale would have made sense, there wasn't much left to sell.  Ray
actually did think about a sale or merger, but it didn't happen.  TMC
was essentially a one-customer company, mainly serving the Navy's need
for HF communications gear.  Two things happened near the end of the
70's:  the Navy backed 'way off on acquisitions of all kinds,
post-Vietnam, so TMC's sales dropped off precipitously.  And, the
military began moving away from global HF communications to satellite
comm's.  With the market for HF comm's having shrunk, there just wan't
room for more than a few major players, so there may just not have
been a company that could absorb TMC profitably.  As revenues dried
up, TMC didn't have the financial resources to update its engineering
workforce, so they were not able to deal with the challenges of a
rapidly changing market.  They also made a few bad decisions,
including the in-house engineering effort for the DDR-10 receiver
system (late 60's) that was to replace the DDR-5 (FRR-60) receivers.
This complex and ambitious project cost them years of effort, and
there was no payoff; by the time the receiver was done, it was already
obsolete, and the Navy only ordered a dozen or so of them.  The
company did consider all kinds of alternative markets, but their
engineers were experienced in engineering systems for the government,
where cost was no object, so their efforts in more consumer-oriented
systems were a bust.

73, John K4OZY

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:51 AM, Mike Durff <mike at oldaudio.net> wrote:
>  Nicks recent posting of the "Project Judy" station in Greece leaves me wondering... If TMC had such a presence 50 years ago, and apparently many years thereafter, why wasn't it sold or bought out? Like the Collins / Rockwell deal.Did TMC just die a natural death?  Were there larger political forces at work? Owners choice?Inquiring minds want to know...
> TNX, MD, K4TQF
>
>
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