Electus is the warehouse import business that sells to OEM'S.
Its the natural evolution of a very successful business built up over the decades starting with the Jaycar stores.

We started off with the premises on Paramatta road at Burwood and in Sydney and away she went after that.
I worked directly for Gary Jonston ever since the Bill Edge/Electronic Agenies/JCarr years as a TO.
I retired a couple of years ago and am not privy to recent events.
I was always a proponent of selling lines of parts through the retail Jaycar stores and the Boss was always adamant that this would continue while he breathed.

The Catalogue you see is just the tip of the iceberg of the size of Jaycar/Electus and was always the "Bible" around the operation of the company. The company is, using the words of a successful furniture retailer: "HUUUUUUUGE"!
Was always a Family company and you did what the boss said or find a better job somewhere else.
I was fine with that, some were not.

There is a next step in the evolution of a company and possibly this will happen soon, note the press release of the purchase at Olympic Park.
I thought the current premises would never fill up, but that's what I thought about the last premises at Silverwater.
When I left the building was being constantly upgraded and expanded to the bursting point.

I watch what is happening with interest and no, I don't want a job again i'm retired!!!!!
I'll just sit in my workshop and fiddle with valves and coins and write crap articles.
Fred.

I find Jaycar's site okay except for the search feature. It returns far too many irrelevant results, even with a precise search term. I can't say I've used the Altronics recently but I don't remember finding it difficult to use.

the search feature. It returns far too many irrelevant results

Yep, and that rates a fail from me.

Yep, I agree about the search function being a joke.

Fortunately Wagner electronics in Sydney still carries a huge range of repair parts (we used to order almost all our parts for TV's and VCR's from them) but I was annoyed when I found that the local kid at Jaycar didn't know what "Dial Cord" was..............

I was annoyed when I found that the local kid at Jaycar didn't know what "Dial Cord" was

I don't expect young guys to know about vintage gear, but I do expect them to know their own stock. The staff at my my local Jaycar are pretty good in that regard. The store manager is on the ball, so it seems he hires similar staff.

WES does tend to have a fair bit of the hard to find stuff, but their customer service needs attention. WES, like RS Components and element14, keeps most of its stock in bins in an area behind the counter. The last time I was there I ordered what I needed and paid. My pick list disappeared out the back and I joined a queue of guys ahead of me waiting ... and waiting. Eventually one of them asked why the hold up and the counter guy looked at his watch and advised "the pickers are on their tea break". I can't print the various comments that flowed from that. The kindest one was "So now WES employs public servants?"

There are some little caps around 3/8" dia & 1/2" long in some transistor sets crack their jackets & burn. You will also note that I am one of many that trust paper caps as far as I can throw them. For interest I leakage tested a 0.0068mfd 1000V cap on the vibrator of the STC 236 on the bench. I expected it to be a dud, & at 2 Meg it is.

When I was working as a Broadcast Engineer at the ABC in Melbourne I ordered some replacement line output transistors for some SONY broadcast monitors from WES as they had them in stock and were much cheaper and more importantly quicker than ordering from Sony spares. When I fitted one it only lasted about half an hour and failed with a short between collector and emitter. I checked everything else and could find no problems with the drive waveform or any other reason for the failure, so I fitted another one with the same result. They got very hot just before failing. I had one left which I'd ordered from Sony spares so I fitted this one. It ran cool and was still working perfectly hours later.I reasoned that the WES ones were most likely counterfeits. I contacted them via email to report this and never even got an acknowledgement. Just a warning to others. I think RS or Element 14 are a better bet for these types of devices.

There is dodgy stuff out there. One of our Radio Club members tested some Zeners for a job & they did not measure up & were unstable & off voltage. That also applied to the batteries he was going to use, where the AMP Hours quoted were false: Again, did not measure up.

Yeah, lots of counterfeit parts out there these days. Why would they even bother, when the money they'd make probably wouldn't even cover the cost of production.

If Altronics actually had more than one store here, and it was in a convenient location, I might even visit. As it is, it's too far away, and the petrol used to get there would cost more than any possible savings. So, I visit Jaycar even though it's a few km away and they don't sell any valves.

Rubbish components from suppliers were always a problem for the buyers at Jaycar.
The attitude from a few suppliers was: "if faulty no problem we send more" as if that would fix the problem!
Such suppliers got shafted quick.
About 20 years ago Transistors could be joke. I looked at a lot of TO3 types. They would fuse at rated current.
When you cut them open they had a die in them about the size of a signal transistor. Like 2N3055 had BC107's in them.
If you just beta tested them at milliamp they were normal, but run them at rated amps and ...pooooof, just like IREXT says.
As for chips, I think they used to try and palm off reject batches to the stupid Aussies.
I don't know what happens now.
There was a battery supplier who pulled the "No ploblem..we send more" when there was a leakage problem with cells.
You only get one go at Jaycar, the next lot were the same batch number!!
We sent back every battery from that supplier at his shipping cost and NEVER bought from that supplier again.
Simple.
I guess now with parts we are looking at shelf life as well, all parts degrade and poison so even genuine new-old stock could be faulty.
I found brand new MosFets I had in stock that were perfect when new after 20 years or so were non functional when put in circuit.
It was a minefield and you needed a laboratory to vet all parts!
Fred.

Sad really, so many great suppliers gone in this age of throw away, and repairers for that matter!!
Have managed to "reform" just using my megger or IR tester if you like...Can also use my ancient University TST tester as well to a degree, but really just to prefer to replace, often wonder if its reformed how long then till it has to be done again?
Especially when you have a collection & radios tend to sit around for long periods...
While searching for info on Ducons stumbled on this http://nepc.gov.au/system/files/resources/...electricians-and-electrical.pdf

Not sure if any were ever used in radios but I guess care out there everyone in tinker land...

PCB's were used in Waxed Paper caps of many forms. Many of the old sealed in metal jacket types like Plessey 5S10A are paper type & liable to contain PCB. Oil filled types are also liable to contain it and there were some meal jacketed types in a BC 221 N Frequency Meter (WWII) here & the seals had failed & it was leaking out of them.

I never thought of using my megger to reform electrolytics but it's a great idea. Just have a 1k or so resistor in series and monitor the voltage rise across the cap. I'll give that a try next time. Every day is a school day!!