Steve Herman
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The pending shutdown of one of the few remaining facilities that rebuilds vacuum tubes for radio transmitters raises a serious concern for some US broadcast stations.

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/radio-operators-react-to-econco-closure-a-serious-issue

Radio World · 13h
Radio Operators React to Econco Closure: “A Serious Issue”
By Nick Langan
Feb 18, 2026, 08:02 AM

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Radio Operators React to Econco Closure: “A Serious Issue”
Rebuilt power tubes resulted in station economic savings

By Nick Langan ⋅
Published: February 18, 2026

As several readers have echoed to Radio World, Microwave Power Products’ pending shutdown of the former Econco facility — known for rebuilding vacuum tubes for transmitters — is a big deal. ... MPP announced last week that the final day to request a repair for an Econco Power Grid tube is May 12. As we reported, the company will close its Woodland, Calif., manufacturing site in September.

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Time-tested

Dave Morgan is the director of engineering at Sinclair Telecable in the Hampton Roads region of southeast Virginia. Among his properties are two AM sites using tube-type transmitters and a Gates/Harris FM model that our own John Bisset sold him some 27 years ago. ... “These are excellent transmitters when properly operated, maintained and understood,” Morgan told us. {snip} He pointed to Sinclair’s own Harris units at 850 WTAR(AM) and 790 WNIS(AM). WTAR runs off a Harris 50 kW MW-50, with a backup 5 kW MW-5 at its site near Rushmere, Va. WNIS runs off a solid-state Nautel XR6 from its site east of Hampton, but a tube-based MW-5B backs it up.

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A freshly rebuilt Econco 4CX35000C during installation into the MW-50A at WTAR in 2024.

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Longtime Bay Area engineer Bill Ruck, who performs maintenance for the historic maritime coastal radio station KPH, said the station relies on vintage transmitters, most of which use ceramic power tubes. Because it is a National Park Service Historic Site, the station is unable to switch to solid-state. ... “We do have a few spare tubes, but without Econco, at some point we won’t be able to make RF,” Ruck said.

The search for alternatives

Ron Petersen Sr., president of Carthage Broadcasting Company in Joplin, Mo., told us before the MPP announcement that he was already worried about the scarcity of power tubes. ... His station, 95.1 KMXL(FM), uses a Broadcast Electronics FM-30, which delivers 50 kW of ERP. The FM-30 runs a 4CX20000A / 8990 Eimac power tube. Carthage had gravitated toward Econco’s rebuilt tubes due to the higher cost of Eimac’s new units. While the current tube has served his station well, his next move is uncertain should it fail. ... Petersen had posed the question to us earlier, wondering if any broadcasters had used tubes redesigned by Jingguang in China and listed on Alibaba. The list price of approximately $3,000 is quite a bit less than the new Eimac price [Jim Shelden, chief engineer of a six-station cluster in Bozeman, Mont., and operator of Sweetgrass Engineering] noted for the tube in his Montana transmitter. ... However, looming tariffs made Petersen wonder if those prices will eventually increase as well.

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How is your station affected? Have you secured a rebuilt tube alternative? Share with us.
mailto:radioworld@futurenet.com

Nick Langan

The author is a content producer and staff writer for Radio World, having joined the editorial team in 2024. He has a lifelong passion for long-distance FM radio propagation and is a faculty advisor for 89.1 WXVU(FM). He is also the creator of RadioLand, an FM radio location mobile app, which he completed for his Villanova University graduate thesis.