Bendix

The Bendix name covers several electronic activities and must be read alongside the division named on a product. In 1937 the Bendix Corporation formed a radio division to make aircraft transceivers and avionics. In Baltimore it began in a building at 920 East Fort Avenue, moving four years later to a larger plant in Towson. During the Second World War the division worked chiefly on communications for military aircraft; its history also includes navigation equipment and airborne weather radar. This production of complete systems is distinct from the valves bearing the Bendix Red Bank name.

In the 1950s the Bendix Corporation's Red Bank Division at Eatontown, New Jersey, designed specialist tubes for avionics. Alongside familiar rectifiers and amplifiers redesigned to withstand the severe conditions of flight and landing, it introduced unconventional devices such as the Convectron and Chronotron. A museum example of the Chronotron TT-15-A documents its origin in the Eatontown division and its construction with two heaters and secondary windings. Red Bank therefore identifies a specific activity in high-reliability tubes; Bendix alone can also refer to the corporation's other branches.

The group also had companies and divisions outside New Jersey. Bendix Radio operated in the Baltimore area; documents from 1965 identify Bendix Electronics in Nottingham with operational amplifiers. In Australia a venture begun through the 1951 Bendix-Technico partnership led to Bendix Corporation Australia in 1967. These locations should not automatically be treated as factories for Red Bank valves. In 1983 Allied's acquisition of Bendix and King Radio led to the BendixKing avionics brand, another phase separate from the 1950s tubes. Accurate attribution therefore depends on the division, type, marking and period.