Tehnoton

Tehnoton in Iași became one of the major Romanian manufacturers of radio receivers [2]. Its founding decree was issued in 1972, and production started in 1974, when the factory took over “turnkey” from Uzinele Electronica the complete production documentation for all types of radio receivers, together with the training of its entire staff [1].

Its brands included Gloria and Cosmos; it also made cassette players, record players, closed-circuit television systems and maritime communication equipment, exported among others to France, Japan and the USA [2]. Together with Electronica and Electromureș it contributed to a Romanian output of more than 15 million radio receivers [1].

1972–1989

Tehnoton was founded by Decree 856 of 28 July 1972, after a contest between Cluj, Timișoara and Iași, as Romania’s second electronics company [4]. It started with about 500 employees, with production lines built entirely at Electronica, engineers trained there, and workers from its own vocational school, opened in 1973 [4]. The postface of the book’s second volume names the Iași radio factory as an example of a plant conceived and built on Romanian technical and scientific work, extending to civilian production the technology of the military radio communications production lines [5]. The first radio was assembled in Iași in 1974 and made entirely there from 1975 [4]. In 1976 a few thousand Cosmos radios were sold in Japan, from 1977 the Gloria was sold in France, and from 1979 the United States imported clock radios with LED displays under the Soundesign brand (M 3626, M 3663) [4].

From 1977 Tehnoton made closed-circuit television equipment under a Siemens licence, used at the Cernavodă nuclear power plant, in power stations, at airports, in the Bucharest metro and by the army [4]. The same year it started making mono cassette recorders and radios with record players [4]. From 1978 it made maritime radio communication equipment under a licence from the Norwegian firm Nera, certified by the Romanian Naval Register and used on almost all Romanian ships and on dozens of ships from Central and Eastern Europe [4]. Its first radio-cassette recorders (RC 520, RC Univers) came out in 1981 and its first music centres in 1985 [4].

Its production list for 1974–1993 has more than 90 models of radios and radio-cassette recorders, among them the Cora 2, Pescăruș, Pacific and Royal taken over from Electronica, and its own Gloria 3, Solo 500, Cosmos 7 and Lira car radio [4]. Some exports are listed only by model family and country: Cora for East Germany (1975–1985) and Senegal (1976), Alfa for France (1978) and „RPA” (1974, 1976), Milcov for „RPA” (1979–1985), Select for Hungary (1976–1977) and Cosmos for Japan (1976); a Neptun was made in 1976–1977 and 1983–1984 [4]. Tehnoton and Electromureș together made an estimated 475,000 radios in 1975, 667,000 in 1980 and 440,000 in 1989, most of them at Tehnoton (Electromureș began making consumer electronics only after 1980) [4].

After 1990 radio production continued until 1994; black-and-white TV sets followed in 1991, gas cookers in 1992 and washing machines in 1996 [4].

The company was privatised in 2000 and became part of the Omega-Tehnoton group, which today works in metal processing, plastic injection and electronics [2].

In 1989

In 1989 its full name was Întreprinderea pentru Produse Radiotehnice de Larg Consum și Echipamente de Radiocomunicații Profesionale „Tehnoton” (Enterprise for Consumer Radio Products and Professional Radio Communication Equipment), within the Industrial Central for Electronics and Computer Technology (CIETC) of the Ministry of the Electrotechnical Industry [3].