The numbers used by New Tone Electronics, or "NTE" originated with a division of Sylvania, called the Electronics Component Group. The parts sold by them had the prefix "ECG".
50 years ago, or so.
An old ECG catalog lists type "ECG235" as the AM final/SSB driver equivalent to a 2SC1306 or 2SC2166, 2SC2078 and many others.
The "236" is the sideband final transistor from that product line.
Years passed, Sylvania sold their ECG division to North American Philips. They used the name "ECG Philips" and continued to sell the ECG parts.
We'll skip the early-1980s courtroom drama when ECG got annoyed at having their part-number scheme and cross-reference catalog hijacked by this pipsqueak upstart "New Tone Electronics". Decades pass, and New Tone finally becomes the owner of the ECG product line and name.
What we came to call "baggie" parts are simply remarketed stuff purchased in bulk and renumbered to match the cross-reference catalog listings.
Had a local supplier back in the day who would reverse cross-reference the NTE numbers to an original Japanese-style number. He stocked those, and sold them for half the price of the NTE part. Of course, he was paying way less that "half-price" for the original-numbered OEM parts with the 2SA/B/C/D/J/K numbers. But he went the way of all local repair-parts suppliers years ago. His building is now a commercial print shop.
If the "235" part has been discontinued, they might very well just tell you to use the "236" if only to keep from losing a sale. But the transistor meant to be a SSB final requires more drive power than the 2SC1306/2166 and the like. Works in some radios, and not so well in others.
If you really need a driver transistor for a SSB CB, just salvage the final from the nearest junked AM mobile CB. Good chance it will match just fine.
The need to substitute components that get discontinued is as old as electronics consumer products themselves. A look at magazines from the 1920s and 1930s shows socket adapters for discontinued tubes, so you could substitute available parts for the ones you can't buy any more.
Assembled products like a 1935 Zenith console radio, or a 1977 Royce CB will always live longer than the stuff that's inside of them.
Creative and successful parts substitution has been part of the landscape for as long as anyone has been doing electronic repairs or maintenance.
My favorite example would be a guy on YouTube who calls his channel "Curious Marc". The guy repaired a broken Apollo Guidance Computer. Had to replace diodes and transistors inside "brick" modules cast in epoxy resin.
Bit by bit (literally) he and his team got the thing to power up and execute the programs stored in its memory 50-plus years ago.
Don't think he used anything marked "NTE", though.
73
