WELCOME ONCE AGAIN to the Zenith Book blog. As always, your participation is encouraged in telling the story of the lost Zenith Radio Corporation. (It hasn't been renamed Zenith Electronics Corporation, yet, but we're coming to it.) We've picked up a few more viewers, but not enough! We want the world to know about Zenith and how and why it failed, and why it should never have happened. As promised, this blog and the book that will follow, will tell the whole story.
Unhappy Announcement! It seems that there will be no more of those wonderful breakfast meetings started and carried on through the years by Richard and Barbara Alfano. It was rumored that other volunteers would take over, but it has not happened. The meetings gave great pleasure to so many former employees, as indicated by a photo taken of a happy five who attended the next-to-last meeting--meeting 8.
In that vein, perhaps this Zenith Book blog can compensate in a small way for the loss of the breakfast meetings. It can summon up memories of Zenith from not only the writer but the memories of all Zenithites (Is it OK to use that word?) Memories can be preserved by this blog in, addition to the Zenith Facebook pages which have the address--
REMEMBERING JOE WRIGHT 1912-2002
Joseph S. Wright was president of Zenith from 1959 to 1983. John Taylor, then Zenith vice-president of public affairs and communications, wrote that Wright ran Zenith during the golden years of television, and had built Zenith into the leading television brand and one of America's most respected corporations.
Wright was also know as being fiercely competitive in the courtroom, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Eugene F. McDonald founder and president of Zenith, enlisted Wright to be the leader of his attack team in Zenith's First War against the RCA patent cartel, which was in egregious violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Wright came to Zenith from the Federal Trade Commission where he was in charge of ensuring compliance with the Commission's order to cease and desist from unfair competition. Philip Curtis, who was Zenith's "point man" in the War, characterized Wright as "the government's bulldog, and Zenith needed a man with a bite."
Wright who was the company president from 1981 to 1992, ran Zenith during the golden age, according to Taylor, and was involved with it well into the digital age. He was also part of the group that organized the Electronics Industry Committee for Fair International Trade in 1972.
For relaxation, Wright sailed his sail boat the "Siren Song" in many of the Chicago-Mackinac races.
Joseph Wright--another Zenith "man to remember."
* * * * * * * *
Zenith apologizes! So began a Zenith advertisement that appeared in the magazine The Talking Machine World, in January 1926--nearly 90 years ago! And why should Zenith apologize?-- it asks. The answer: "Simply because of its inability to make all deliveries of Zenith radio sets that were ordered! The demand was too great!"
(What a wonderful marketplace 90,years ago in that Zenith had to apologize for not making deliveries because of over-demand! And note that odd Zenith logo: Zenith had not yet decided how the final logo should appear. )
The advertisement goes on to say in a succession of paragraphs--
"We regret exceedingly that anyone should have to wait for his Zenith. We could, indeed, have forced production, slighted inspection, and sent out a larger number of sets bearing the Zenith name. But Zenith's reputation has been built on outstanding merit. Anything less that the best within Zenith's power to produce would have been a betrayal of confidence.
"It is impossible to make a radio instrument possessing Zenith's Zenith and sell it at a lower price! If anything, Zenith prices in the future will be higher. For our unswerving aim is to make the finest radio set that can be built; and then, and only then, set the price.
"Not every dealer handles Zenith. Many we will not permit to do so, because of their exaggerated representations, false promises, and lack of service. Zenith dealers are carefully selected. They are prepared to render service and to keep their customers satisfied as long as a Zenith remains in their possession."
That advertisement, posted three years after its founding, in effect recites Zenith's basic philosophy and its mantra, a credo that was carried through from the its inception to its end. And most remarkable--the writing to its customers as intelligent human beings!
(And note those prices!--from $100 to $2,000! In today's near-worthless money, that $100 would buy $1,856 worth of today's goods, and that $2,000 would buy $27,712 worth of today's goods. Does anyone remember the five-cent ice cream cone? Not if you are under 60 you won't!)
INTERVIEWING ROBERT
ADLER
Robert Adler, more often called “Bob”
Adler, was
interviewed in ServiceWorld magazine 1974 by your humble, self-effacing author of this blog on the subject “Does Servicing Have a Future?” Here is
the lead photo for the article—
Robert Adler is
highly qualified! He received the PhD in physics from the University of
Vienna in 1937.
His inventions and developments in electronics are many. For television, he invented the ultrasonic
remote control system (described in more detail in previous the Zenith Book Posts
4 and 5); the gated-beam tube for sound and color demodulation; a widely used
synchronizing circuit that improves color reception, and a projection
television system that utilizes a laser beam modulated by ultrasonic
diffraction. For the communications and radar fields, he developed a
high-frequency magneto-restrictive
oscillator, an electromagnetic filter, and a low-noise beam-type
amplifier known as the Adler tube
(about which more will be described.) One could go on and describe the gist of each
of his more than 160 patents, but let’s just say that "he was an inventive genius."
Another thing that can be said: He wasn’t a “suit.” You’d never find him at the 19th hole after 18 holes of golf. And he was seldom called Robert, but most always Bob. To sum him up, he was a kind, gentle man who was always happy to take the time to teach you electronics stuff.
Another thing that can be said: He wasn’t a “suit.” You’d never find him at the 19th hole after 18 holes of golf. And he was seldom called Robert, but most always Bob. To sum him up, he was a kind, gentle man who was always happy to take the time to teach you electronics stuff.
In review of the
article, we’ll summarize a few of the highlights of his career, with especial note
of his predictions, and his inimitable way of putting things. For example—
Now let’s go into
the interview and its highlights. “SW” is the interviewer for Zenith ServiceWorld
magazine—
SW: Take a chance
(about predictions). What about
three-dimensional TV done with holography?
Adler: The difficulties are enormous—too great even
for the most optimistic. Perhaps
sometime the millennium that begins in that magic year 2001.
(SW Note: In 2008 Hyundai debuted the first customer 3D TV set, the
46-inch the E64s, in Japan, and at a
cost of $5,000. Researchers are still working on it to get the price down and get rid of those goggles.)
SW: And flat-panel TV?
Adler: There we can be a
little more optimistic. Many ideas for
flat panel displays are being worked on. Yet there is no device so far that
produces a bright, snappy picture in color, even in the laboratory. When that
device is perfected—call it “time t°—add a few years to learn how to
manufacture it, and a few more to make it competitive. (Note: The time should
be T sub-zero, not T superscript zero, but
Microsoft Word has no symbol like that.)
SW: Which adds up to—?
Adler: T (sub-zero) hasn’t arrived yet, so lets say 1983 for the
flat panel.
(SW Note: Bob missed that
prediction by a few years. In 1994, Fujitsu offered a 21-inch flat-panel
display. AUO Optronics, based in Taiwan, mass-manufactures TFT-LCD panels in 2009. AUO now manufactures TFT panels "with a bright snappy picture" for
Samsung, LG and Apple, among others.)
Adler: I think it will be
quite a revolution when the panel takes over. Also, don’t forget that the flat
screen will be wider than the picture tube.
More detail, more information can be placed on it. A lot of people will
want to use it that way. Also, don’t forget that the flat screen will be wider
than the picture tube. But to make the panel workable, new transmission
facilities with higher resolution capabilities
will have to be set up.
(SW Note: It is believed that Bob was predicting the eventual transition from the analog television signal
to the digital signal, with its advantages of a much narrower bandwidth and higher
resolution. The transition in the U.S. occurred in 2009.) )
SW: Projection TV gets
talked up in the news occasionally. What are its possibilities?
Adler: The perennial
difficulty is getting enough light for daylight viewing. We demonstrated a laser
system some years ago, but it was impractical because of low laser efficiency.
Other systems are now trying to make the grade. I don’t know whether or not the
public would accept a projection system.
Author’s Note: The whole thrust of the interview was addressing
the concern of service people that they were being “designed out of the
picture” because of the goal of 100 per cent reliability by the manufacturers.
Bob’s response to
that concern was—
In Summary—Little did Bob know that in a few years there would be no
need for service people as we knew
them—the servicing dealers of Zenith and their thousands of employees, and the
mom and pop radio and television service shops, and other service shops located in nearly every town and
city in the country—all would be gone because the entire Consumer Products
Industry went overseas.
The story America’s loss
of the Consumer Electronics Industry will be told in a forthcoming Post!
.
In the previous article, Bob Adler’s invention of a low noise beam-type amplifier is mentioned in the summary of his inventions. Its full title is: electron-beam parametric amplifier, or EBPA.
In this blog, the Zenith magazine ServiceWorld has been mentioned. Few people within the company had ever viewed it, because its 28,000 copies were circulated solely to the Zenith Distributors, and to Zenith dealers and service centers. Below is a photo of the cover of the first edition published in the published in the summer of 1973.
--and, continuing inside the front cover--
stems from a decision by Zenith management that Zenith should capitalize on its reputation for service to its customers, and to reinforce the famous Zenith message The Quality Goes In Before the Name Goes on.
All service-related departments of Zenith were gathered under one roof in Glenview, Illinois, comprising a "consumer services department" that incorporated all service-related activities such as warranty claims, technical writing and training, replacement parts and accessories, and customer communications. The division was under the direction of Albert S. Medica, one of Ross Siragusa's bright young executives brought over from Zenith's long-time rival, Admiral Corporation. The magazine ServiceWorld was the concept of Medica, and was carried out by the self-effacing author of this blog, whose puss is pictured beneath Nevin's on the second page of the first issue, shown in the foregoing.
The creation of the customer service department and ServiceWorld magazine was actually a last desperate effort by Zenith management to stem the losses Zenith that had suffered as a result of losing the Second War against the RCA-Japanese cartel, the details of which will be described in a forthcoming Post of this blog. As a result of that loss, Zenith profits had fallen from the 15 per cent of its "salad" years to a disastrous, money-losing 4 per cent.
Here is another page from the first issue showing Medica's concept of "who we are, and what we do." (Hi, guys! What has become of all of you? It has been 41 years since these photos were taken. --rec)
.
In the previous article, Bob Adler’s invention of a low noise beam-type amplifier is mentioned in the summary of his inventions. Its full title is: electron-beam parametric amplifier, or EBPA.
PARAMETRIC (definition in
electronics). Relating to or denoting a process in
which amplification or frequency conversion is obtained using a device
modulated by a pumping frequency, which enables power to be transferred from
the pumping frequency to the signal.
As it was an invention of great importance to radio astronomy. (Especially important now that we have been acutely aware of the millions of earth-killing satellites whizzing about us earthlings,, and ready to strike anytime!). The EBPA was installed in the 28-foot radio telescope of the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank. West Virginia, and in radio
telescopes world-wide. Other
applications included most types of radars, radio-telemetry, satellite and
deep-space probe tracking and ranging, and communication systems.
The EBPA is essentially a low-noise
microwave amplifier that offers noise
figures in the 1 db range and gains up to 45 db. It provides a high degree of
phase and amplitude stability, and is very linear. Also, it acts as an overload
signal isolator to protect a system--recovery after an overload is within 30
nanoseconds.
One configuration comprises six of
the EBPA tubes enclosed in a round chamber encircled by a magnetic field. A large problem arose in providing a uniform magnetic field within
the chamber, a problem that threatened to make the EBPA unusable. Engineer Ed
Passow, chief of the Zenith Special Products Division, and Leo Gizynski, head
of the special products model shop, got together one evening and worked out a
solution. They wound a coil around the cluster of tubes using –not the standard
round wire--but square wire. And it worked superbly by providing the uniform
magnetic field the cluster of EBPA tubes required for operation. The
project was saved!
So that is ServiceWorld magazine, a magazine which has become an historical document of sorts. Does anyone really care anymore? Those shown must be well in their 80's and 90's now, and many have gone to their rewards. Yes, we must care,, and we must remember, for theirs are lives well-lived in a company they loved--Zenith. Requiescat in pace.
ServiceWorld Magazine was a quarterly publication. Only six issues were published as the act of establishing the consumer services department had failed in Zenith's effort to overcome the effect the dumping of television sets on the market by the RCA-Japanese cartel. (The story of which will be told in a forthcoming Post of this blog.)
It was all a matter of the "price-point," which is defined as "the suggested retail price of a product determined in such a way as to compete with prices of other products." (Definition is from Business Directory. com.) Because of the load of carrying the Zenith distributor system, and Zenith's insistence on the highest quality, the cost of a Zenith television set was inevitably higher than a Japanese set "dumped" on the market at a lower cost ensured by the Japanese government. A customer might buy a Zenith television set that cost 5 percent more than a dumped Japanese set because Zenith would service that set as long as the customer owned it (Do you recall that 1926 "Zenith credo" described earlier in this blog?). However, if the cost was 8 or 10 percent higher, that American customer may not buy the Zenith, despite the urging to "buy American."
(Customer: Hey! If it craps out, I can get it serviced somewhere else, perhaps at a Zenith servicing center, so why should I pay more?)
As a result, and as has been described, Zenith was hemorrhaging money, and would be forced to "go overseas"; that is, transfer all production to Mexico. If it had not done so, it would have been out of business in two years. Too bad for American production workers who would lose their jobs.
Now let's look forward to Post 4 of this Zenith Book Blog! More interesting stuff is coming. And please--join in! Contribute! Criticize! Correct errors! Moan, if you feel like it. But Help! Help! Just click on the pencil or box below and unload yourself. Or even write and article, as Bob Podowski did.
ServiceWorld Magazine was a quarterly publication. Only six issues were published as the act of establishing the consumer services department had failed in Zenith's effort to overcome the effect the dumping of television sets on the market by the RCA-Japanese cartel. (The story of which will be told in a forthcoming Post of this blog.)
It was all a matter of the "price-point," which is defined as "the suggested retail price of a product determined in such a way as to compete with prices of other products." (Definition is from Business Directory. com.) Because of the load of carrying the Zenith distributor system, and Zenith's insistence on the highest quality, the cost of a Zenith television set was inevitably higher than a Japanese set "dumped" on the market at a lower cost ensured by the Japanese government. A customer might buy a Zenith television set that cost 5 percent more than a dumped Japanese set because Zenith would service that set as long as the customer owned it (Do you recall that 1926 "Zenith credo" described earlier in this blog?). However, if the cost was 8 or 10 percent higher, that American customer may not buy the Zenith, despite the urging to "buy American."
(Customer: Hey! If it craps out, I can get it serviced somewhere else, perhaps at a Zenith servicing center, so why should I pay more?)
As a result, and as has been described, Zenith was hemorrhaging money, and would be forced to "go overseas"; that is, transfer all production to Mexico. If it had not done so, it would have been out of business in two years. Too bad for American production workers who would lose their jobs.
Now let's look forward to Post 4 of this Zenith Book Blog! More interesting stuff is coming. And please--join in! Contribute! Criticize! Correct errors! Moan, if you feel like it. But Help! Help! Just click on the pencil or box below and unload yourself. Or even write and article, as Bob Podowski did.
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Karl Horn, 1923-2014. 
