MARCHI

United Electronics Company was founded in Newark, New Jersey, in 1934. Its documented address was 42 Spring Street. The firm belonged to the early American generation of specialists in high-power transmitting tubes: its name refers to a manufacturer, rather than merely a label applied to someone else's valves. Newark and the name United Electronics Co. are therefore important references when comparing markings, catalogues and technical documents.

The catalogue covered more than one kind of valve. It included power tubes for transmitters and industrial use, miniature external-anode diodes, and ranges of clipper and rectifier diodes. Fixed and variable vacuum capacitors appeared alongside the tubes. This variety reflects a company serving high-frequency circuits and applications where power, insulation and electrical behaviour depended on the specific component. A United name on a tube must therefore be read together with its type and function, without extending one product's characteristics to the entire range.

United Electronics was acquired by Ling Electronics in 1958; the records still describe it then as making power, industrial and transmitting tubes. This corporate change provides a useful date for reading material from different phases, but it does not retroactively change the name marked on earlier products. United Electronics must also be distinguished from later unrelated companies using similar words: this account concerns the Newark manufacturer and its tubes and vacuum capacitors.