GE

	General Electric was one of the really big players in tubes. Here's a couple of early GE boxes. Writing on the tubes in the style box on your left was orange, more in keeping with the old company colors. Tubes in the box on your right usually had silver writing. This is when the RETMA(EIA) manufacturer's code began to appear on their tubes.

	Here's two GE boxes from the 50's. On your left is the standard tube box. On your right the 5 Star industrial grade box. Tubes of this era used the year-week date code. Writing was usually white, sometimes red and even a few green.


The box above is one of the most recognizable boxes in the tube world. GE used it for decades. The only change was replacing the pre-printed 'Made In USA' with 'Country of Origin Marked on Tube'. They used this box for both standard and industrial grade tubes. The tube writing was usually white, occasionally red and once in a while, light blue. Date codes were usually 2 letter, but occasionally used the year-week format. GE's EIA code is 188. The vast majority have a -5 (Owensboro, Ky), but there are some otherrs such as -21, -22. Don't know where they are. The Mobile Radio Division in Lynchburg, Va. designed their own box, shown below. The Mobile Radio tubes usually have red writing, have the same EIA mfg code, but use the year-week date code almost always. These tubes were always seasoned.

The box above is one of the most recognizable boxes in the tube world. GE used it for decades. The only change was replacing the pre-printed 'Made In USA' with 'Country of Origin Marked on Tube'. They used this box for both standard and industrial grade tubes. The tube writing was usually white, occasionally red and once in a while, light blue. Date codes were usually 2 letter, but occasionally used the year-week format. GE's EIA code is 188. The vast majority have a -5 (Owensboro, Ky), but there are some otherrs such as -21, -22. Don't know where they are.
The Mobile Radio Division in Lynchburg, Va. designed their own box, shown below. The Mobile Radio tubes usually have red writing, have the same EIA mfg code, but use the year-week date code almost always. These tubes were always seasoned.

	This is actually a sticker that goes on large Industrial Tube Boxes. Note the city is Schenectady, NY	This box is a variation of the very popular one shown above. It was only used during the early days of the 12 pin Compactron tubes. Shortly GE reverted to the popular box and simply printed Compactron on the flap above the tube type.

I used to have a cross reference of the 2 letter date codes to actual dates, collected from PF Reporter/Electronic Servicing magazine. I've written them, but they say they can't help. Does anyone have a list of these codes? UPDATE: SEE BELOW TABLE!!

A word about seasoning. All good industrial and two-way radio tubes are seasoned. All receiving tubes should be. Many are. However, I've seen the same tube type from the same manufacturer seasoned sometimes and not other times. Anyone who's ever installed an unseasoned CRT knows what I'm talking about. The same principle applies to all tubes.

GE tubes were always first line, top quality tubes and should be remembered as such.

Most of us are familiar with the frosted writing and dots found on many GE tubes. When we find that on other brands, you know who made them!
Under various brands in our tube lists you'll sometimes see (GE) in the RETMA/EIA column. This means the tube has the GE frosted dots.

GE bought all of RCA. However when they sold the consumer electronics division to Thomson of Europe, they only licensed the GE name for a few years. Thomson got the entire rights to the RCA name and phased out the GE name over a few years. RCA's industrial tube division was spun off into a separate company called Burle Industries. GE small consumer electronics (little radios and other appliances) went to Black & Decker, who is now owned by someone else. GE Communications (Mobile Radio Division) married Ericcson of Sweden, one of the major players in Cellular. And so the world goes.

EUREKA! I have found the GE letter codes. Or at least some of them. Check out the table:

Month	1971	1972	1973	notes
Jan.	CE	CF	CH	For following years advance the 2nd letter by one alphabetically. For instance, Jan. 1974 would be CI, Jan. 1975 = CJ, etc. Note certain letters are skipped, I don't yet know which ones, but notice that the letter 'G' is skipped both for year and month. 'D' is also skipped at least for the month. Presumably you can work this backwards too. In other words, Jan 1970 would be CC (or maybe CD). Also note: 'P' and 'Q' are skipped for the month (first letter.) Does this mean they're skipped for the year (2nd letter)? When I know more I'll post it. For most of the 1960's they used the earlier year/week code. I'm not sure when the change-over to the two letter code occurred. You can get an idea by checking the date codes on our tube lists.
Feb.	EE	EF	EH
Mar.	FE	FF	FH
Apr.	HE	HF	HH
May	IE	IF	IH
Jun.	JE	JF	JH
Jul.	KE	KF	KH
Aug.	LE	LF	LH
Sep.	ME	MF	MH
Oct.	NE	NF	NH
Nov.	RE	RF	RH
Dec.	SE	SF	SH

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